


Van Gogh and Vodka

by nymja



Series: Van Gogh and Vodka Verse [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2602610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin's new dormmate is a bully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Potato Drinkers

**Author's Note:**

> A requested expansion of a three sentence meme I did for Clarke and Bellamy: accidentally college roomies! Anticipating it to be around six chapters, subject to change though!

**i.**

He’s a bully.

It’s a childish term, but it’s also the only word she can think of. Because Bellamy Blake, her new dorm mate, is definitely a bully. It’s in the set of his jaw, the way he widens his shoulders to dominate the entire space of the room. It’s in the slightly condescending sneer that tugs at the corners of his lips.

When he walks in, there’s a slight widening of the eyes when he realizes that his dorm has now become co-ed, but other than that he doesn’t acknowledge her. He only shrugs the strap of his army-issued duffle over his leather-jacket encased shoulder and makes a beeline for the beds.

“The top bunk’s mine.”

He doesn’t even look at her as he says it, throwing his bag on the upper mattress and beginning to unpack his things. He’s either ignoring or completely oblivious to the fact that her own laundry is already on the bed—her art supplies neatly sitting on top of a folded set of spare sheets.

“I’ve already taken it,” she keeps her voice calm, rational. Like dealing with an irritable bear. And, just because he’s going out of his way to treat her like a piece of inconvenient furniture within seconds of meeting her, she makes it a point to turn in her chair and face him as he grabs handfuls of her watercolors and pencils.

Finally, he looks at her. And that slight sneer morphs into a grin that speaks to a cold entertainment.

“Well, princess, we can always share.”

Before she can do anything but slightly raise her eyebrow and cross her arms, Bellamy Blake dumps her art supplies on her mattress.

She takes a deep breath through her nose.

“It’s Clarke,” she corrects.

“I don’t care,” he replies, pulling out a pair of earbuds and plugging them in.

She watches, as he swings onto the top bunk and lies on his back. He gets out a book from his duffle, and the music on his iPod is loud enough to echo throughout the shared space that is suddenly too small.

Just that easily, her entire existence has been dismissed. She bites the inside of her cheek.

…Clarke Griffin has never been tolerant of bullies.

\--

She waits until he leaves to reorganize her art supplies and make the bed of the lower bunk. Because Jake Griffin taught his daughter how to pick her battles, and she already knows this is just the first of a series.

**ii.**

Grounded University is infamous for two main reasons. One, its nearly ruined buildings, which are ancient and falling apart from a lack of funding for renovation. And two, its transitional programs for students who are recently released from the Adolescent Rehabilitation Center juvenile detention. Every year, Grounded University offers 100 newly-enrolled freshmen from ARC a probationary scholarship.

Clarke is one of them.

And, during her first class, she meets four more.

“College, bitches!”

Clarke looks up from her sketchbook at the abrupt cry, and is surprised to see a small brunette standing in the doorway to the lecture hall. Her arms are up in the air and her hands are fixed into devil’s horns. She’s pretty, and on either side of her there’s a boy her age. One of which is, bizarrely, wearing ski goggles.

Clarke’s eyes trail over to the professor, a Dr. Sydney if her schedule is correct. The older woman, blonde and somehow clinical despite her jeans and casual button-down shirt, only presses her lips into a line at the outburst. But Clarke notices that her eyes follow the girl as she climbs up the stairs.

And sits next to her.

“Hey, I know you,” she greets, unperturbed and tossing her brown hair over her shoulder. She puts her muddy boots up on the back of the chair in front of her. The two boys she’s with take the empty spots to her left.

Clarke frowns. Because she doesn’t know her.

The brunette leans forward, “You’re from Arc, aren’t you?”

Clarke’s hand stills around her pencil.

The younger girl smirks, “Knew it! Solitary right?”

Her fingers tighten their grip.

The girl must notice how tense she is, because her brows shoot up, “Hey, don’t get weird about it. I’m Arc, too. So’s Jasper and Monty,” she jerks a thumb to the two boys, who mutter out individual greetings.

“It’s a regular reunion,” comes a low voice near Clarke’s ear, and she jerks, startled to see a face next to hers. Less startled when she recognizes it.

Behind her, leaning over the backrest, is Finn Collins. The boy who infamously took a military vehicle out for a joyride. She remembers seeing it on the news, what feels like a lifetime ago.

The girl next to her beams at the interruption, “I’m Octavia,” she says, craning her neck over her shoulder to face him. She didn’t bother to give Clarke her name.

Finn smiles, slow and lazy, “Finn,” he turns his stare to Clarke, “And who are you?”

Clarke turns to an empty page in her journal, “Someone who’s taking notes.”

And just like that, Dr. Sydney takes to the podium and begins her lecture. Clarke’s pencil moves methodically across the lines, and she ignores the conversations buzzing around her. And the feel of someone’s eyes trained to the space between her shoulders.

\--

“I thought someone who’s been in solitary the last few years would be more fun.”

Clarke sends Octavia a slow glance as she walks to her next class, “It’s more important to take this seriously. We’re only here on probationary status.”

The brunette shrugs, stretching her arms over her head and rolling her shoulders, “I don’t know about you, but _I’m_ only here because it gets me out of Arc.”

Clarke looks around, trying to see if Octavia’s friends are nearby and therefore free to distract her. They aren’t. She takes a breath, “You don’t think you should get an education?”

Octavia snorts, “Only enough to get me a job. I’m not owing anyone _anything_ after this.”

She can understand the sentiment, at least. But she also doesn’t think the big picture’s been realized. “The university has almost no funding,” she says levelly, “Never mind funding for an experimental, rehabilitation program. We _have_ to perform well here, and we need job placements after graduation if they’re going to keep using it in the future.”

The younger girl tilts her head, “Can I ask you something?”

“Alright.”

“Were you this much of a funkiller before, or did Arc suck it out of you?”

Despite herself, a corner of Clarke’s lips twitches into a reluctant smile, “…I can be fun.”

“Sure you can,” Octavia catches the eye of a good-looking, dark haired guy sitting on one of the numerous, ratty sofas that pepper the lobby. And smirks when he smiles at her, “Aaand I think I just found something to distract me until dance class. Later, Clarke. Don’t have a stroke between now and Wednesday.”

Before Clarke can get a word in, Octavia gives her a dismissive wave and goes to sit next to him, flirtatious and confident as she runs a hand down his arm.

Clarke shakes her head. She’s going to be trouble. And Clarke’s capacity for trouble reached its limits some time ago.

\--

When she gets back to her dorm room that evening, she’s surprised to see Bellamy standing in front of her side of the wall. Even more surprised to see him glaring at a poster that’s hanging on said wall. Her stare follows his, landing on a print of Vincent Van Gogh’s _Starry Night._

Clarke frowns, carefully putting down her bag and emptying her school supplies onto her study desk. The silence stretches between them, and finally she decides to attempt being a bigger person with her bully of a dorm mate.

“It’s by-“

“ _Undergrowth with a Couple_ is better.”

Clarke blinks, and Bellamy’s eyes squint at the painting, before he shakes his head.

“Everyone has this one,” he accuses.

So now he’s an art critic.

“It’s popular for a reason,” is all she mutters in her defense, pulling out her anatomy textbook. She thinks she catches Bellamy sending it an inquisitive look out of the corner of her eye, but he’s back to glaring at her wall when she turns her head up.

“Whatever you say, princess.”

She goes to give him her name once more, but decides not to give him the satisfaction. He knows her name by now. It’s on a plaque by the door. It’s clearly labelled on the art supplies he keeps relocating. So instead, Clarke pulls out the chair and a set of index cards without another word—a quiz has already been assigned for next Monday.

Bellamy stands in front of her print for a few more seconds, and she can nearly sense his agitation hovering around his body in a halo. She doesn’t let the grim satisfaction she feels show on her face. _It’s not fun to be ignored, is it._

Finally, he sighs.

“Don’t be here Friday.”

Clarke doesn’t look up from her notecard, “No.”

“What?”

“This is my dorm, too,” she starts to draw an anatomically correct diagram of a heart, “You don’t get to decide when I’m here.”

“It’s important.”

“Then try asking nicely.”

Clarke can practically hear his teeth grinding against each other, “You’re serious?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Bellamy scowls, and she can feel the annoyance directed at her, “I can lock you out.”

“And I can notify the RA,” she sketches out a light outline of the pulmonary veins.

He takes a deep, agitated breath, “ _Fine._ Don’t be here Friday,” he glares. She draws ventricular cavities. His scowl grows deeper, “ _Please._ ”

Her pencil stops. For a second, “…I’ll think about it.”

Bellamy makes a short scoff of disbelief, before he grabs his jacket off his desk chair and storms out of their dorm.

Clarke doesn’t watch him go. Instead she finishes the cardiovascular system and moves on to the endocrine.

They’re going to have to figure out how to live with each other, eventually. And for now, it’s good enough that she establishes her limits.

\--

The next day, when Clarke comes back from her afternoon classes, a print of _Undergrowth with a Couple_ is taped defiantly to the wall. She notices with some amusement that this print is pointedly bigger than the one she has of _Starry Night_.

 

**iii.**

The first week of college passes by uneventfully.  Notes, tests. And long nights in the library, so she doesn’t have to spend long nights in the dorm. And Clarke’s surprised when Octavia finds her Wednesday evening, four stacks deep in physics textbooks.

“You _are_ a nerd,” it takes a second for Clarke to realize that Octavia’s not saying it in a mocking manner. And that the younger girl seems…uneasy, “Can I sit here?”

Clarke’s eyes widen, “Of course,” and she pushes _Introductory Physical Science_ to the right edge of the table. Octavia looks at the cover with barely repressed concern, before she takes the free space.

“This where you go every night?”

Clarke folds her arms over her chest, “Usually.”

“You know there’s frat parties, like, all week right?”

She raises her eyebrows, “You know you can’t go to the frat parties forever.”

Octavia rolls her eyes, but Clarke sees her bite down on her lip, just a little. The two sit in silence, and when Clarke decides that Octavia is just going to apparently sit and nothing else, she returns to reading. It’s not until chapter four of Earth Sciences that Octavia speaks again.

“Hey, how long were you locked up for?”

Clarke frowns, putting the book down. Octavia isn’t looking at her, instead she’s toying with the hems of her sleeves. Clarke inhales slowly, “Eighteen months, why.”

Octavia’s gaze flickers up, “I was away for six years.”

Clarke’s mouth goes dry, “…I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it sucked,” she says with a forced dismissal, “Did you-?”

“Did I?”

Octavia frowns, apparently trying to ask a question without asking it, “Did you see your family, after?”

The question sinks like a lead weight in her stomach. Clarke takes a steadying breath, and her eyes move to the watch around her wrist before she can stop them.

_Hey. Keep that for me._

She feels every muscle coil like a spring, then snap back into place. Clarke clears her throat, keeps her composure. “No.”

Octavia gives a half-hearted grin, “Guess that makes two of us, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

The grin falls, replaced by a smile that’s too big and bright to be genuine, “Clarke, this is boring as hell. Let’s go out.”

“It’s Wednesday,” is all she can articulate, too thrown by the abrupt shifting of gears.

“It’s _college_ ,” Octavia corrects, “You know, for a delinquent you really care a lot about the rules.”

Clarke bites down on her lip. Thinks about press releases. And soccer games. And the feel of her dad’s arm slung over her shoulder. And suddenly the words in front of her, the ones that talk about gravity and oxygen and _survivable_ conditions, are lines of condemning print. Bars on a different kind of cell. She looks at the date written neatly on the top corner of her notes.

She slams the book shut.

“Screw it,” she relents, “Let’s go out.”

Octavia beams, “ _That’s_ more like it. Atom knows a great place.”

Clarke tilts her head.

What kind of a name is Atom.

\--

Atom is apparently a name that belongs to the dark haired boy Octavia was flirting with a few days earlier. And he’s the kind of boy who has a terrible taste in bars. When Clarke walks into The Dropship, her brain immediately identifies the sticky counters, the dirty glasses, the haze of smoke that floats in blue curls by the lights despite smoking being illegal in public buildings. And it’s clear that Octavia’s already been here before, since she makes a straight walk towards the counter and the bartender smiles at her.

“You know you’re too young for this shit,” the bartender says, using a rag to wipe away excess drops of water from a glass.

Octavia rolls her eyes, “I’m nineteen.”

“And the drinking age is twenty one, nice try,” her eyes trail over to Clarke, and she gives a nod, “You need something?”

Penicillin, maybe. But the first word out of Clarke’s mouth is, “Vodka.”

The bartender gives a low whistle, “Vodka…?”

“Just. Vodka.”

The woman smirks, “Good vodka or bad vodka?”

Clarke looks around the bar. At the distinctly unfriendly looking crowd. And decides that in for a penny is in for a pound, “Cheap vodka.”

The bartender, whose nametag says “Raven”, laughs and pours out a shot of Phillips, “Are you trying to strip the paint off of something?”

Clarke grabs the shot glass, sniffs it, “My stomach, apparently.”

And downs it.

Octavia rolls her eyes, “You didn’t ID _Clarke_.”

Raven grins, “Look at her. She’s fifty on the inside.”

Clarke’s lips purse as she tries to master the urge to recoil from the bitter, definitely chemical taste that already speaks to a hangover, “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Here, have another two dollar shot.”

The blonde’s eyes widen in disbelief, “Did you say _two_?” What has she done.

Raven laughs as she pours one for Clarke, herself, and, after a moment of deliberation, a half shot for Octavia—whose eyes light up like she just received a pony. The bartender lifts the glass up with a dip of her chin, “I told you it’d strip paint. Bottom’s up.”

Clarke takes another shot. And realizes she has made a bad life decision this evening.

\--

An hour and more paint-stripping shots pass. They’re eventually joined by the boy with the name (Atom- _Atom_?), Jasper, and Monty. After a while, they move to the pool tables, where Octavia tries to line up a shot as Atom leans over her for what Clarke is going to assume is instructional purposes. Jasper and Monty play against them, with Jasper trying to get a word in edge-wise but desperately failing.

Clarke looks at her watch. Her fingers trace over the lens in slow, contemplative circles.

It’s not until she feels a stare that she looks up, finally locating the source of it. Across the bar, by the music stage, there’s a man sitting. A _big_ man, wearing a tight t-shirt, several tattoos up his arms and neck, and a stoic expression. But it’s not Clarke he’s staring at.  And she follows his gaze to where Octavia finally sinks a corner shot with a jubilant cheer, throwing her arms around Atom’s shoulders.

Clarke sighs. She was right about the younger girl being trouble. But, somehow, one library conversation about solitary confinement and four (or was it five?) absolutely terrible shots later, Clarke has discovered that she’s going to start feeling responsible for her.

 _This must be what making friends feels like,_ she thinks dryly to herself. Because she hasn’t really had a friend since Wells-

Clarke slams back another drink.

And decides it’s time to show everyone that she’s really, _really_ good at snooker.

\--

Clarke is half asleep on a sticky table when she feels a finger tap on her shoulder.

“Never thought I’d see you here,” comes a masculine, amused voice.

She isn’t sure what this guy wants. Or why he’s interrupting a perfectly good nap. The brain can subside on twenty minutes of rest to increase productivity-

Clarke rolls her head to the side. And sees Finn. He looks way too sober to be here.

“Clarke, right?” He smiles. It’s not a bad-looking smile. But still, way too sober. The ratios…the ratios are off.

“I think I drank away my stomach lining,” she says, matter-of-factly.

Finn laughs, taking the seat across from her, “So I’ve been told,” he nods towards the bar.

Clarke follows his stare, and sees Raven wave back as she wipes down a counter. She also sees that the bar is almost completely empty now, save for the people she came with and Finn. Clarke watches as Jasper half-heartedly tries to shoot popcorn into Monty’s mouth, and as Octavia and Atom exchange PDA in between dart throws.

“What day is it,” she mumbles, feeling that eighteen dollars of terrible vodka deep in her very soul if not in her very pounding, aching head.

Finn’s eyebrows raise, “You mean time?”

“Day. What day.”

“The seventeenth.”

Clarke struggles, finally, into an upright sitting position. And rubs the heel of her hand against the bridge of her nose. Her head hurts, but it isn’t numb. And that low hum of disappointment hits her, along with no small amount of self-chastisement. She knew this wouldn’t help. It _shouldn’t_ help.

“I’d like to go now,” she mutters.

“Lucky for you, I’m here to help with that,” Finn says, pointing over Clarke’s shoulder, “My girlfriend has kindly informed me that it's bar close. And that she feels a little responsible for your well-being, since she made money off of giving you acetone.”

“Not a lot of money,” Clarke deadpans.

“Enough for me to walk with you back to campus. I’m going there anyway,” Finn stands, offering her a hand. Clarke frowns.

“What about the others?”

“Jasper and Monty are roommates. Octavia’s going back to Atom’s.”

Clarke’s frown deepens, and she takes a few shaky steps over to the dart board, “Octavia, are you drunk.”

Octavia snorts, sending Clarke a glance before she throws a dart. It hits the bull’s eye, “No, mom.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, but looks at Atom with a deadly seriousness. She’s admittedly pleased when he seems to recoil a little, “Are _you_ drunk.”

He slowly shakes his head.

Clarke stares at him for a little longer, before she turns to Finn, “Okay, we can go.”

Finn raises his eyebrows, “After you, princess.”

She scowls. Why do people keep calling her that.

\--

The walk back to campus isn’t sobering, but somewhere between crossing the quad and navigating three flights of stairs back to her dorm floor, Clarke is feeling more drained than nauseous. But she knows, with a sort of medical finality, that she is definitely going to be feeling this in the morning.

And, she’s shocked to discover she doesn’t hate Finn. Even though his adrenaline junkie tendencies almost classify him as a terrorist.

“The dorms suck, don’t they?” he says conversationally, his hand warm at her waist. At some point, Clarke’s inner equilibrium failed her and they both discovered she needed additional, stabilizing support.

They do suck. They’re grey, and remind Clarke of the old bomb shelters from the 50s, when everyone believed nuclear destruction was only a red-button-push away. They feel far too much like the cells at ARC.

And they have bullies in them. Who liked the wrong Van Gogh paintings.

But what she says instead is, “We’re lucky they’re giving us housing at all.”

Finn shrugs, “Not sure how this is a step up from ARC.”

Her lips tilt, “At least I can paint here.”

“I didn’t figure you for an artist.”

“That’s because you don’t know me.”

“Let’s start fixing that,” Finn says. He’s still too sober. “Let’s go cliché first: what were you in for?”

Her throat feels dry and her lungs constrained. Because tomorrow’s the eighteenth, and Clarke’s voice is near icy when she stops walking, “Treason.” She gestures to the door, that still has her name on a plaque, “This is mine.”

Finn, obviously picking up on the tension, redirects his efforts to the (hopefully) context-free door, “This is the boys’ hall.”

“There was a mix-up. My name. It's on the plaque.”

He grins, “Co-ed?”

She nods, digging out her card key and swiping it, “Thanks for walking me back.”

The door swings open. The lamp’s on. Finn shrugs, “Don’t worry about it.”

Clarke only staggers a little as she crosses the threshold, “Goodnight.”

He tucks a stray piece of blonde hair behind her ear, “Night, princess.”

And Clarke shuts the door. Takes a breath. Turns.

Bellamy’s sitting at one of the desks, a book in his hand. _Sophocles._ And he’s frowning as he turns a page.

“This coming home at four in the morning with strange men thing going to be a pattern?”

And because she’s tired, and drunk, and _Starry Night_ is the better painting, and who even reads _Sophocles_ at four in the morning, Clarke settles for a mature and inebriated, “Shut up, Bellamy.”

He raises a brow at that, setting the book down and standing. He takes a step close to her, and sniffs, “You’re drunk.”

“So what if I am.”

“It’s a Wednesday.”

“You’re a Wednesday.”

Bellamy irritation is no longer a subtle thing, “If we’re stuck together in here, try and be responsible.”

Clarke’s hands ball into fists at her sides. Because he doesn’t know her. He didn’t even make an attempt to get to know her. Screw Bellamy Blake. “I _am_ responsible, and if I decide _not_ to be responsible I don’t owe my bully of a roommate an explanation.”

“…bully?”

“I had the top bunk first,” and that seems like a good exit line after a quart of terrible vodka, so Clarke stumbles onto her mattress, fully clothed, and presses her face into the pillow. The metal band of her watch digs into her cheek, and a wave of indescribable sorrow hits her full force when the pain of it registers.

“The hell’s the matter with you,” Bellamy grumbles, somewhere between anger and bemusement.

Clarke hears the hands of the watch tick-tick-tick in her ear. And her drunken mind decides that she needs to tell _someone,_ because she hasn’t spoken to her mom since ARC, and Wells isn’t her friend anymore because she has to hate him, and she doesn’t even _like_ or _know_ Bellamy, so it doesn’t matter what he thinks, which means maybe just saying it will make it feel less heavy on her chest.

“My dad died tomorrow,” she slurs into the pillow.

Silence. Before, “What?”

Clarke closes her eyes, and instead of explaining, falls into a deep and empty sleep.

\--

The next morning is the eighteenth. When she wakes up, there’s something on her nightstand. She squints against the painful rays of the sun, and makes out a glass of water she doesn’t remember putting there. With two aspirin. And a note, written in blocky pen:

_Clarke_

_Don’t be here Friday._

She sighs, takes the aspirin dry, rolls over, and goes back to sleep even though she knows she should hydrate to counteract the hangover.

\--

Clarke doesn’t stay at the university on Friday.

Instead, she buys a bus ticket across town, where she goes to the florist and ignores phone calls from her mother. She then walks to the small cemetery.

The grave of Jake Griffin already has fresh flowers—nicer ones, set up in an actual arrangement and put in an expensive vase. But Clarke still offers up her sad bouquet of daisies, with the picture she drew of a soccer game on the bus, and sits down in front of it.

And tells her dad about her first week of college.


	2. Custodian on the Road to Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got it done earlier than expected, woo! Thank you all for the positive feedback :D

**i.**

They don’t cover this sort of thing at the family sessions. Not that Bellamy’s ever been particularly receptive to them, but if the social worker would’ve said anything close to this topic, he would’ve remembered. Or would’ve wrote it down. Something.

Instead all he has is a stupid pamphlet.

The magazine-like paper wads and crumples in his fingers as he opens it up for the fifth or sixth time. On the cover, there’s a middle aged man opening his arms wide as little, blonde kids run into them. All smiles. All sunshine.  _“Time to Come Home” – Maryland’s Guide to Family Reunification and YOU!_

He folds the cover over. There’s big, bright letters.

_So your loved one is coming home from jail…_

Bellamy folds it back. Looks at the dad on the cover again, at the joy on his face, immortalized with lensflare. It’s bullshit.

He sighs.

There’s not a section on “Hey, Sorry You Were Put into Foster Care.” Or “Guess It Sucks Your Childhood Was Spent Making License Plates.” Or, more importantly, a bullet point saying “How To Stop Failing As a Brother.” Instead there’s buzzwords:

_Listen. Support. Transition. Reintegrate._

She didn't know he was here until this week. So no to Listen.  
He barely makes any money at his job. Passing Support.  
And he’s pretty sure the last two are the same thing. He doesn’t know how to do either.

Bellamy scowls, tucking the pamphlet back into the pillow case underneath his head. He pulls into a slow sitting position, looking around the dorm that he unfortunately shares. At the dual desks—his side littered with empty coffee cups and crumpled post-its. Hers neatly ordered and arranged by subject.

He’s twenty four years old and living in a dorm room with a type A. As if he didn’t have enough to be pissed off about.

A drunk type A, if last night was any indicator. Bellamy’s eyes dart to the nightstand, with an empty water glass and a crumpled up piece of paper that says _Fine._ in careful cursive. He isn’t sure what compelled him to grab both for her like it’s his first frat party. But he gets the feeling she’s looking for ammunition, and far be it for him to _inconvenience_ anyone. He frowns, just a little, as he tries to remember what it was the princess muttered before burying her face in her pillow. Something about her dad.

Whatever. It isn’t any of his business.

Bellamy pushes himself off the top bunk. His bare feet land almost silently on the wooden floor, and he goes to the closet. With a sigh, he pulls on ratty, navy maintenance uniform. It took skipping class this morning, twenty dollars, and three switched shifts to get Murphy to cover for his overnight, but it would be worth it.

Bellamy thinks about the smiles on the kids’ faces, as they run in for a hug.

He has to believe it’ll be worth it.

Bellamy flattens the front of his uniform against his chest, and digs out his phone. Hesitantly, he awkwardly types out a message against the touchscreen.

_We still on for tonight?_

And waits. He waits until he’s sure he’s going to be late for work. But finally it buzzes back. He takes a deep breath, and opens the text:

_Yeah. Okay._

It’s a start. Hopefully a good one. Bellamy texts her the dorm number for the third time, and leaves for his absolutely miserable work study position as a custodian for the campus.

Specifically the science labs. Last night, someone had left parts of frog dissection out on the tables. The entire room smelled like old tires and formaldehyde.

The phone buzzes as he shuts it off.

What a time to be alive.

\--

When he gets back from cleaning out beakers, it’s late and there’s not a lot of options left for food. And he can’t screw this up. So he orders pizza. Pizza seems safe enough--some goofy kid with goggles on (who wears goggles in the summer?) delivers it and waits around awkwardly for a tip that Bellamy reluctantly ( _very_ reluctantly, he was ten minutes late) gives.

And then Bellamy looks at it and feels like an idiot again. Because it’s pineapple, and the last time he had an actual _meal_ with her, she was ten years old and maybe the nineteen year old her doesn’t even like pineapple. Maybe she does olives instead. Or anchovies. Or whatever the hell else goes on these damn things.

Stupid. This whole thing. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore. Because his memory of Octavia is a little girl in a grey dress, wearing a mask and practicing for a recital. He doesn’t even know if she does ballet anymore, either. Did they let her, in juvie? Did delinquents get that sort of thing? Did they get their damn pizza with pineapple on it?

He runs a hand through his hair. He should’ve been better. But now it’s Friday. And if she doesn’t hate him, she’ll be here anytime now. He opens the box.

The pineapple is arranged in a smiley face. Bellamy scowls.

Never should have tipped that dipshit.

A knock sounds from the door, timid but increasingly louder. Bellamy takes a deep breath, closes the lid, and goes to open it.

The person on the other side of it is…He looks down.

Short.

But grown.  
Grown-up.  
He swallows.

Green, narrowed eyes look up. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she seems almost annoyed in the green army jacket and combat boots, but it’s gone in a second. It’s gone when her jaw goes a little slack. When her voice comes out soft and nearly timid between her parted lips.

“Bell?”

His chest feels tight, and before he knows what he’s really doing, Bellamy unfolds his arms around her thin shoulders, and holds her like he hasn’t been able to for nearly ten years. He feels Octavia hesitate for only a second, before she returns the gesture, buries her face in the crook of his neck, and does something he can only call _deflating._

For this short moment, the last six years is all worth it. The shitty job. The mopping floors. The smell of old tires stinging his nostrils. Not having a real purpose after getting out of the army. Dealing with people giving him orders. Pineapples arranged into condescending smiles. He hears Octavia sniffle and decides it’s all okay right now.

“You smell like a tire,” she says through a sniffle, pulling back.

He knows he does. Bellamy clears his throat, “I-” _So your loved one is coming home from jail…_

Octavia raises an eyebrow, and seems to understand. “-have food, right? I’m starving.”

Bellamy shakes his head, trying to free the scattered words that buzz around. _Listen. Support. Integrate-_ “Yeah. Pizza good?”

“I’m in college. Pizza’s a food group.”

He smiles, surprised at how unnatural it feels—like a gear that’s been rusted over but is fighting to keep turning—and moves to let her in to the dorm.

\--

They talk. Awkwardly. Strangers getting to know each other again.

He asks her about dancing. She looks at the painting—Clarke’s _Starry Night_ —and says, guiltily, that it’s been awhile but she’s taking some performing arts classes and looking into a company because the whole math thing _sucks_ almost as much as Arc.

She asks him about the army.  
He doesn’t have much to say about that. 

He notices that she picks the pineapple off her pizza, and pushes it discretely to the side of her paper plate.

 --

It takes her an hour to ask the hard question.

“So,” Octavia tucks a piece of her brown hair behind her ear, “What are you _doing_ here, Bell?”

He frowns, but the answer comes easily and rehearsed, “Going to college. They take the G.I. Bill here, so-“

“That’s what you’re going with? Really.”

Bellamy takes a slow inhale, and looks up from his pizza to see her staring at him, intense and almost accusatory. His fingers begin to absently twist with the paper edge of the plate.

“…I thought you might be here,” he confesses, “It’s been so long, O. I-“ the paper tears between his finger and thumb, “-had to make sure you were okay.”

He sees the emotions war on her face, the defiant tilt of her jaw that means she’s about to call him an idiot, the softening of her eyes that, more than anything, let him know she’s been just as lonely and isolated as him the last few years.

“I don’t need anyone making sure I’m okay,” she says, but looks down, and it makes her seem ten and vulnerable again, “But thanks.”

The words tumble off his tongue before he can stop them, and Bellamy puts a hand on her arm, “I missed you.”

Octavia swallows, and doesn’t look away from her lap, “Yeah, well. You should’ve visited.”

“I know. I screwed up. But the first few times they wouldn’t even let me in, and then I got deployed-“

“It’s fine, Bell.” She says, but he doesn’t think it is. He doesn’t think it should feel like there’s a wall in between them when things are _fine._ And maybe _fine’s_ not good enough. Not when he can make it better.

And he _will._ He’s going to make it better. He’s going to fix it.

“Can you give me a chance?”

Octavia looks up, meeting his gaze with her eyebrows furrowing, “A chance for what?”

“I don’t know. Just to…” his hand drops from her arm, useless by his side, “Try.”

She’s quiet, and the silence feels like a black hole he wants to sink into. Because Bellamy’s not used to feeling exposed, and if he is, he’s sure as hell not used to laying it all out there for someone to either accept or reject. The walls of the dorm are almost smothering, like the metal of a bomb shelter when it’s going nova everywhere else.

“You don’t have to try, Bell.” She timidly grabs his hand with her own.

He squeezes it back, “I want to.”

“Okay,” Octavia clears her throat, “Then first things first.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve hated pineapple since I was thirteen. So pepperoni next time.”

“Pepperoni?”

“Pepperoni.”

\--

She stays for another hour, before heading to a job he wonders if she actually has. But it was a start. And starts are good, he thinks.

The princess isn’t back from wherever she went. And it’s odd that the absence of a highlighter scraping across paper creates a noticeable silence.

But Bellamy’s fine with having the place to himself. Especially after talking to Octavia. So he kills time with his history book until a few hours after his sister leaves, when there’s a knock on the door.

He frowns, content to ignore it, but it comes again. Loud and confident. Maybe it’s the RA. And the last thing he needs is to be a twenty four year old without even a dorm.

Bellamy sighs, shuffling out of his blankets and not even bothering to put his shirt back on as he crosses the space to the door. He opens it and speaks before looking.

“What do you want?”

The guy that stands before him is younger than he is. Not by much, but it’s enough to make him want to groan in irritation. Because Bellamy doesn’t know him, and therefore he must be here for his dormmate. And he’s not the same guy as the one on Wednesday.

The new guy’s curious, Bellamy can tell, but his words are even, “Is Clarke here?”

Clarke. Princess. Right. Bellamy shakes his head, “No.”

“Is she usually here?”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m a…” the guy cuts himself off, squaring his shoulders. Bellamy continues to evaluate him with slightly narrowed eyes. He looks like money—new, designer jacket and clean sneakers. “Can you just tell her I stopped by?”

“I’m not a message board. You don’t have a phone?”

“It’s important.”

He’s sure it is. But Bellamy wants him to go, and if he conveniently forgets to deliver the guy’s message after he leaves, so be it.

“Fine. Who are you.”

“Wells,” he offers his hand. Bellamy doesn’t shake it. “Just. Let her know I stopped by. Please.”

Because of the _please,_ Bellamy gives the guy the courtesy of a nod before he slams the door shut in his face.

\--

The princess comes back early on Sunday. They say nothing to each other, and Bellamy doesn’t tell her about the visitor. It’s not like it was his business to begin with, anyway.

 

**ii.**

Murphy’s an asshole.

In addition to being enrolled in the same work study program, the guy’s also in his History of World Religions class. And he takes the former as an invitation to sit next to him in the latter. Where he doesn’t. Shut up.

“So how’d date night go?” He asks with just a hint of condescension, drumming the end of his pencil against his notebook. Professor Vera Kane looks up from her lecture podium at the interruption, but is of the smile-through-annoyance variety of teacher and continues to the next slide.

Bellamy writes down the new text from the projection screen without looking up, “It wasn’t a date.”

Murphy scoffs, cracking his neck from side to side, “That bad, huh?”

“It wasn’t anything, because it wasn’t a date.”

“Touchy, touchy,” he hasn’t written down anything, even though Professor Kane’s eyes keep narrowing in on him, “What happened then? Had to be good, for you to ditch out on the overnight.”

“My sister.”

“You have a sister?” Murphy perks up, just a little. Bellamy’s already figured he’s the kind of guy to always have his ear pressed against a wall somewhere, “ _Here_?”

“Yeah.”

“Do I know her?”

God, he hopes not, “No.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Murphy making a show of tapping his chin with a finger, “Blake…Blake…,” and Bellamy sees Murphy turn his attention to him, “You know, I know an Octavia Blake. Back at Arc. Something about living under floorboards-“

Bellamy grips his pencil tightly, and he knows his words come out just as strained, “You don’t want to start this conversation.”

“I’m just saying-“

“Drop it.”

The smirk on his face is almost enough to make Bellamy want to punch him. But Murphy only takes out a book that’s for an entirely different class and shrugs with too much nonchalance, “Hey, I get it.” No he doesn’t. Murphy’s voice gets even more disaffected, “I’m sure I can just ask Atom, anyways.”

Bellamy frowns. What kind of a name is Atom.

“Who.”

“You know. In our philosophy class,” Murphy rolls his neck. It cracks. Professor Kane sends him a concerned stare that he ignores, “Her boyfriend.”

 _Boyfriend._ Bellamy’s frown deepens, and he tries to recall everything he knows about the guy who is apparently in his philosophy class. Leather jacket. Motorcycle. Wrong interpretations about Derrida. _Really_ wrong interpretations of Kermode. One of the 100 ARC kids.

She hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend.

“By the way,” Murphy continues, scratching the back of his head, “You know those three shifts you’re taking for me next week?”

“What about them.”

“They’re in the library. All third shift. Have fun.”

Murphy’s. An asshole.

\--

The week passes by slowly. There’s a certain routine to living on campus that nearly reminds Bellamy of basic training back in Georgia: wake up. Make bed. Go to class. Do homework. Go to work. Repeat. The princess is there, of course, but he tries to keep contact there minimal. He’s not in the habit of making friends, and now’s not a good time to start. She’ll be gone at the end of the semester anyway, a phone call made from a rich parent requesting a private, more appropriate living space. Because like that guy at the door, there’s something about the princess that speaks to money. Like the countless art supplies, despite her not being an art major (not that he’s asked. But she seems to only bring back biology and physics textbooks back to the dorm). Like her posters and clothes that all seem new enough. The way she keeps her space organized, the complete opposite of his own.

Tough shit for her. He’s not going anywhere.

She’s usually gone in the evenings when he leaves for work, and tonight’s not an exception. Bellamy’s thankful, because he doesn’t need to see the silent judgment she no doubt has when he puts on the custodial jumpsuit. One less thing to be irritated by.

He texts Octavia before he heads to the library, asking how school is going. Her response is still short and clipped, but it comes a little sooner than usual and that’s enough for now. It’s not like he expected ten years to just fall away, but part of him might be a little more idealistic than he thought.

It’s universally accepted that library shifts are the worst jobs after the lab buildings. There’s too much shit: thousands of shelves that need to be dusted, book bins that need to be emptied and cleaned, tables full of empty Red Bull cans and granola bar wrappers and desperate attempts at notecards. And unlike the lab buildings, there’s people there at all hours. And they glare every time a trashcan hits the ground too hard or he knocks a book over, like their precious Intro to Psych retention can’t survive even the barest amount of noise.

The second shift at the library, he doesn’t even try to be quiet. Bellamy plugs in his earbuds, cranks up Led Zeppelin, and goes through the motions. He rolls his stupid mustard-yellow trash cart up the aisles, tossing the garbage in with as much noise as he feels like making. He mops the lobby. He dusts the lamps at all the study tables, regardless as to whether or not people are already sitting there.

He turns a corner. And pauses.

Of all the places he expected to find his little sister, the library is dead last on the list. Not that Octavia isn’t smart, because she is. Just not in the way that was suited towards hours spent in silence and stillness. Though it doesn’t look like she’s studying, with her boots kicked up on a chair and her arms folded behind her neck.

And of all the people he expected Octavia to be with, his dormmate is not one of them. But Bellamy slowly tugs out an earbud and hears the muted sound of conversation, as Octavia says something and the princess actually smiles back, before writing something down in her notebook.

They. Look like they’re friends.

Octavia’s never mentioned her friends. And the princess has never mentioned his sister (not that she really _could,_ seeing as they are on barely civil terms with one another).

Bellamy watches for another second, before he feels more like an intruder than a brother, and slowly puts his earbuds back in.

 _Ramble On_ plays at full volume, as he decides to clean the other half of the library tonight.

\--

The third and last shift of the week, Bellamy doesn’t really have a choice but to clean where the princess sat the other night. Thankfully, when he turns the corner this time, she’s by herself and there’s no estranged sisters to be seen. The princess is nose deep in a textbook called _Biofuels Engineering: Process Technology,_ and he wants to die a little just reading the title to that thing.

Bellamy keeps his earbuds in, and figures it’s better to just get it over with. He wheels his terrible cart down the rows between the study tables, he empties the bins with the same amount of enthusiasm as usual. He doesn’t look up from his work, and he doesn’t acknowledge the fact that his dormmate is now staring at him.

He makes it to his third trashcan before he hears her talking to him, muffled and distant under the crooning sounds of Social Distortion. Bellamy stills. Sighs. _Get it over with._

If nothing else, maybe she can let him know what Octavia’s obviously not telling him.

He tears out an earbud. Mike Ness sings about a ball and chain for roughly four seconds before he silences the iPod.

“What?” His voice comes out agitated, but he doesn’t have it in him to feel guilty about it. Not when he’s spent eighteen hours this week dusting out shelves.

The princess taps her pencil, obviously a little annoyed at having to repeat herself, but she does it anyway, “I said, are we just going to pretend like we don’t know each other?”

Bellamy’s eyebrows raise, “If we were, you ruined it.”

She folds her arms, leaning back a little in her study chair. And he waits for it, that silent judgment. That upturned nose. The reminder that there are those who eat bread, and those who make bread.

Instead she rolls her shoulders, “I didn’t know you worked nights.”

He bristles, “What about it?”

The princess yawns, stretching her arms up over her head, “Nothing. Just that I’d rather be in my room studying.”

“Then why do you come here.”

The look she sends him has nothing to do with the jumpsuit he’s wearing, and everything to do with the fact that he’s been an asshole.

Bellamy tenses, “You can study in the dorm.”

“I know. I can study wherever I want,” the princess lowers her arms.

“Then what’s the problem.”

“The fact that I’ve apparently caused one for you just by breathing.”

He scowls, looking at the ugly cart in front of him, “And what were you expecting, princess? Best friend bracelets?”

“No. Just civility. Which we don’t have.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“Mostly.”

“I’m not the one coming home drunk at four am on a weekday.”

“You dumped out my art supplies before Wednesday.”

“They were on my bunk.”

“It was my bunk first.”

“I gave you Advil.”

“Only because you wanted to kick me out.”

Bellamy inhales sharply through his nose, “It was important.”

The princess tilts her head, and a wave of curly, blonde hair falls over her shoulder at the motion. He digs his fingers into the push handle of the cart. And finally, she sighs.

“Look. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah, and why’s that? Couldn’t get into a better school?” It’s a petty jab and he knows it, but he doesn’t care.

The princess presses her lips together tightly, “No, actually. I’m with the ARC program.”

And that is not what Bellamy’s expecting. But it explains why Octavia’s talking to her. And he feels that protective urge flare bright and hot in his chest, “For what?”

“Pre-med and electrical engineering.”

“Not that. ARC.”

The princess shakes her head, “Try treating me like a human instead of a piece of furniture first. Until then, it’s none of your business.”

Bellamy clenches his jaw, “Just tell me.”

“No.”

He looks at her, irritation flooding him as he tries to pinpoint what it is about his dorm mate that makes him so instantly aggravated. Bellamy teeth are near grinding as he presses out his next words.

“What do you want.”

The princess appears a little thrown by the question, which is nearly satisfying, but the expression is gone just as quickly as it comes. She takes a breath. Contemplates. And finally settles on something, because she sets down her highlighter.

“We’re going to have to live with each other. So let’s start with real introductions. I’m Clarke.”

He still doesn’t care. But Bellamy nods with a mechanical sort of reluctance, “Fine. Bellamy.”

“Stop moving my art supplies, Bellamy.”

“Don’t come in drunk on weekdays, Clarke. I study in the morning after my shifts.”

“Alright.”

“Okay.”

Bellamy meets her eyes. And stares a little too long into them as he tries to figure out what else to say. Finally, he clears his throat and shakes his head.

“I have to get back to work.”

Clarke looks down at her books and nods, “Me too.”

He wonders if this is where he’s supposed to say goodnight. Or good luck on the homework. Or one of the fifty million other platitudes that dictate this girl’s idea of _civility._

Instead, Bellamy just plugs his earbud back in and finishes collecting trash.

\--

They need to live together. They don’t need to be friends.

**iii.**

“How do you know Clarke?”

Octavia’s in the middle of tying her street shoes, the ribbons of her ballet pointes peeking out of her nearly-zipped gym bag, “What?”

“Clarke.” He realizes now he doesn’t know her name, “The…blonde.”

It’s after Octavia’s performing arts class, and he has a Classics course in the same building, so it’s not hard for him to meet her afterward for lunch. It’s a new tradition. At least, he thinks it counts as a tradition as they’ve done it twice now. Octavia stands, undoing the tie in her hair and releasing it from its bun as they begin walking out of the stage room.

“She’s cool,” she says non-committedly, her eyes narrowing in suspicion, “Why?”

“She’s Arc.”

“So am I.”

Bellamy jams his hands into his pockets, “They’re dangerous, O.”

Octavia snorts, sending him a look that’s downright poisonous, “Don’t give me the afterschool special speeches, Bell. You’re a little late for that.”

The hands in his pockets make tight fists, “Do you even know what she was in for?”

“Yeah. We swap tragic backstories every Wednesday over darts.”

“What?”

“You don’t just ask someone why they were at Arc. It’s…” Octavia shrugs, “Rude.”

Bellamy frowns, “Go back to Wednesday. Darts? Like at a bar-?”

“Give it a rest, Bell. You don’t get to control what I do or who I hang out with,” Octavia glares up at him, “No one gets to do that but me from now on.”

He returns the expression, “Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?”

“How do you even _know_ that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Are you snooping on me?”

“No! It just came up-“

“Like Clarke just came up?”

“This isn’t about Clarke.”

She halts in her step, “Then what’s it about.”

He’s torn between frustration and that undeniable feeling that something is quickly escaping his control, “You’re not telling me things. Things I should know.”

“I tell you what I want to tell you,” Octavia counters, “And, believe it or not big brother, I’m perfectly capable of handling my own life.”

No she’s not. Because she’s nineteen, and she’s been in one system or another for almost a decade. And Octavia doesn’t know the real world. She doesn’t know that people disappoint you and fail you and that sometimes you don’t get good things unless you compromise parts of yourself. He doesn’t want her to know that.

“Look, you don’t understand-“

She makes a growl of frustration, before turning sharply on her heel to a different road.

“What are you doing? Food hall’s-“

“I’m not hungry.”

“C’mon, O. Don’t start this-“

“Thanks for the life advice.”

And she’s gone before he can figure out what to say to get her to listen, a small dark figure disappearing around a corner without so much as a look back.

Bellamy wants to hit something. Because he’s only been up for two hours, and it’s already a shit day.

\--

It doesn’t get better. He thinks about going to the bar, but it’s a little too early and when it’s too early bartenders feel obligated to talk with customers in order to get a tip. He thinks about tracking Octavia down to talk to her, but she hasn’t exactly told him where she’s living and finding out without her consent basically just proved her point. He doesn’t know what he’d say anyways.

So he ends up back at the dorm.

And, of course, the princess is there. With a guy. The one with the new jacket and shoes.

The door is open, and he doesn’t bother to knock as he steps into the room. The only word that comes to his mind is _tense._ Princess is standing with her arms crossed over her chest, and the guy is looking like something that’s been kicked too many times in the underbelly. They’ve clearly been arguing. Or, at least, princess’s been arguing.

“Did I crash a party.”

“No,” she says tersely, not looking away from the newcomer, “Wells-“ oh, right, it was Wells, “-was just leaving.”

Wells shakes his head, “You’ll have to talk to me sometime, Clarke-“

“I’m not talking to you ever again.”

She says it with a brutal sincerity that she’s never even directed at him. And Bellamy’s eyes trail to Wells, wondering what could have possibly happened there despite his better intentions to mind his own business. Wells presses his lips together and sends him an annoyed glance, and Bellamy suddenly remembers that he was supposed to tell her he stopped by. Bellamy raises his eyebrows in return. Too bad.

“You know where to find me,” Wells finally offers, before he straightens his back and shoulders past Bellamy. He and Clarke watch him leave with identical, measuring stares.

Because Bellamy’s having a shitty day, and this is an easy enough target, he doesn’t stop the smirk on his face, “This looked like fun.”

She turns that iced-over glare to him, “Why didn’t you tell me you talked to Wells?”

“Because it’s none of my business,” Bellamy says, deliberately echoing their exchange in the library. She probably doesn’t remember it, but it’s just as well.

She looks like she wants to argue the point, but can’t find a reason to. He watches as she visibly uncoils, like a lioness who just watched another predator finally leave her hunting plain.

“You’re back early,” is all she offers instead.

Bellamy’s smirk falls, “Let me know when the next lover’s quarrel is, and I’ll schedule around it.”

“It wasn’t a lover’s quarrel.”

“Looked like one to me.”

“You also thought it looked like fun.”

She has a point there. And he suddenly realizes that he’s standing within most people’s realm of personal space, and backs away to the other side of the dorm, sitting at one of the desks.

He doesn’t know why he wants to talk, but he does. If only to hear his own voice and not have it rejected by an angry younger sibling, “Better than my day, at least.”

The princess watches him warily, still in lioness mode he takes it, before she sits slowly at her own desk, “Your day,” she repeats.

Like she’s shocked he can talk. Bellamy almost sneers. He’s not an animal.

“Turns out I have them, princess,” he replies archly.

Clarke slowly turns in her seat to face him. This already feels more like an interrogation than a discussion, which, in a way, makes it more comfortable, “You’re a student.”

“That or dorm regulations aren’t what they used to be.”

Clarke starts to fiddle with the edges of her long, grey sleeves, “What’s your major?”

Bellamy arches his brows, waiting for a challenge before he even speaks, “Classical Studies.”

“So…history?”

“With philosophy and some lit. Yeah.”

“You’re too old to be in the dorms.”

Right in the sore spot. Bellamy makes a show of getting out a book, so he can address _Three Theban Plays_ instead of his dorm mate, “I was in the army for a while.”

“What made you leave.”

Bellamy feels a smile on his face, though he’s not sure why because today’s been shit and he doesn’t even like talking to her, “Try treating me like a human instead of a problem, first. Until then, it’s none of your business.”

The princess doesn’t say anything in response to that, but Bellamy senses her turn back to her homework.

\--

The silence that follows as they work is a little less uncomfortable.

 

 **iv.**  

A week passes. And the call comes at five in the morning. Bellamy is working on the last part of a history paper at his desk when his phone vibrates. He ignores it in favor of typing his last sentence. Probably Murphy, bored at work, at this hour.

His phone vibrates again, the motion making it crawl off his mattress and crash onto the floor.

Bellamy swears a silent _“Shit_ ” as the princess rolls over, pushing herself up as she wakes.

“What the hell is that?” She asks in a groggy sort of way, rubbing the heel of her hand against her eyes.

“Phone,” he starts to say sorry, but grabs his cell instead. It goes dead just as the princess’s starts to ring.

He meets her gaze with mutual confusion, before she awkwardly fumbles with her phone before answering it.

“Hello?”

Bellamy hears a voice on the other end, but it’s low and distorted. He watches her face carefully, and like a switch the sleep is cleared from her eyes—replaced by a cold alertness.

“Octavia, slow down and tell me what happened-“

Bellamy’s hand acts of its own accord when he snatches Clarke’s own phone away from her. He hears her short burst of protest, but the phone is pressed tightly against his ear when he strangles out a syllable.

“O?”

“ _Bell?_ ”

She sounds like she’s been crying. And Bellamy clutches the phone tight enough to go white-knuckled.

“Talk to me.” Because Octavia’s crying. And something’s wrong.

_“I tried to call you but you didn’t answer so I tried Clarke-“_

“Octavia. It’s fine. Just tell me-” _what I can do,_ “-what’s happened.”

There’s a sniffle, and he can hear his brave little sister trying desperately hard not to cry, “ _I- I don’t know how to fill out these forms.”_

“What?”

“ _Atom-“_ She stops herself, takes a breath. And Bellamy hears her voice come out calm and steady and pragmatic and all these other grown up things she doesn’t have to be yet, “- _we got in a crash. And I…I don’t know anything about insurance forms or if I even have insurance so I can’t fill these things out for the nurse-“_

“Is she alright?” Clarke asks him, listening intently.

Bellamy swallows, “O, you okay?”

Silence. He hears her take another sharp inhale, _“I. Broke my leg. But Atom-“_

He’s startled when Clarke’s hand rests on his shoulder. He turns to face her, at a loss for what to do.

She’s so calm when she talks. How can she be so calm when his heart feels like a jackrabbit about to burst from his chest? “Ask her which hospital.”

He nods, “Where are you?”

 _“Lincoln Memorial._ ”

Clarke takes the phone from him, and he doesn’t know what to do besides stand there and pretend he’s still holding it, “Octavia? It’s Clarke. I’ll drive him over. Don’t sign anything, okay?” She gives a hum of acknowledgement, “No, that’s what you’re supposed to do. We’ll be right there. I’m glad you’re alright.”

She clicks the phone off, and Bellamy doesn’t know what to say or do (because Octavia’s in the hospital. Octavia’s in the hospital and the last time they talked she was pissed at him) so he’s thankful when she has a suggestion.

“Do you have health insurance?”

“Yeah,” he blinks, “Tricare.”

“Okay. Is Octavia covered?”

Bellamy swallows, but nods, “She’s my dependent.”

Clarke looks at him, still in her pajamas but he can picture her in scrubs as she does a mental assessment.

“I have a car,” Clarke says finally, “Come on.”

She sends him a side look as she opens the door, and Bellamy is forced to follow after her.

\--

“You’re the brother,” she mutters as they drive across town.

Bellamy looks out the window, trying not to think about ballet recitals or grey dresses or pineapple or floor boards, “Yeah. I’m the brother.”

Clarke nods, and they’re silent until they get to the waiting room.

\--

As a general rule, Bellamy’s not a fan of hospitals. They’re too stark, all clean edges and sterile. It’s the idea that he’s walking into a place that not everybody gets to walk out of.

Now that he knows Octavia’s somewhere in here, hurt, he likes them even less.

Bellamy doesn’t even wait for Clarke to put the car fully into park before he springs out and bolts for the emergency entrance. He hears Clarke tell him to stop before the automatic doors slide close behind him. Bellamy goes through the hospital’s metal detectors with an aggravated sort of impatience, and he knows he’s probably snapping at the men running them. He doesn’t care. He lifts his arms up for a pat down while his eyes aggressively scan the crowd for her.

Bellamy charges into the waiting room, and he sees her sitting there, by herself. Her leg’s in a cast, her hair is matted and tangled. She has a white ID bracelet around her wrist and a clipboard in her hand.

“Octavia?”

She looks up, and he doesn’t need to ask her about the boyfriend. It’s all over her face, from the small lacerations (from glass?) that pepper her forehead, to the worn out circles under her eyes. Bellamy knows, without having to ask, that his little sister saw someone die tonight.

“Hey Bell,” she whispers, and he crosses the distance between them. Octavia’s bottom lip is caught between her teeth, and her bandaged hands are struggling to hold a pen long enough to fill out the necessary checkmarks on the forms.

“Are you okay?” He hates himself for asking. Because she’s obviously not okay. Her body’s in bandages and her boyfriend’s dead. She’s not okay.

Octavia takes in a rattled breath, “I. I don’t know any of our insurance stuff-“

“I’ll do it,” he offers, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He takes the clipboard slowly from Octavia’s hands and takes the empty seat next to her. Then listens to her ragged breathing as she holds something in that he can’t help her let out.

Bellamy can’t stop staring, as Octavia tries not to cry.

And he doesn’t know what to do beyond filling out the ticky boxes.

“Octavia?”

Both of the Blakes look up at the voice, and Clarke stands before them. She’s looking a little flustered, no doubt from chasing after Bellamy, but her eyes are only on his sister as Clarke takes the other empty seat to her.

Bellamy watches, fascinated and embarrassed, as Clarke easily takes Octavia’s hand into her own. As she does, so easily, what he couldn’t figure out how to do. He sees Octavia grip her hand tightly.

“How’s Atom?” Clarke asks.

Octavia slams her eyes close before shaking her head. “He’s-“

Clarke smiles at her. A nice, full smile. One that Bellamy doesn’t understand. And she wraps her arms around Octavia’s shoulders.

“You’re okay.” Clarke promises.

Octavia shudders in her embrace.

“You’re okay, Octavia.”

His sister makes a choked sound, before she slumps and he hears her start crying in earnest. He sits to the side, as Clarke pulls Octavia into a tighter hug, mindful of her injured leg. She rubs her back, and Octavia clings to her in a way Bellamy’s never seen her cling to anyone before. Like Clarke’s an anchor.

Bellamy meets Clarke’s gaze from over Octavia’s shoulder. He grips the clipboard tight enough in his hands to break it.

And takes a breath. Because Octavia needs somebody. And tonight that somebody wasn’t him. Wasn’t her big brother.

But, as he sees Octavia’s bandaged hands clench tightly into Clarke’s pajama shirt, he can’t find it in himself to be resentful about it.

\--

An hour later, they find out that Atom crashed his motorcycle while Octavia was riding on the back. That Atom was pronounced dead on the scene. That Octavia’s leg is broken in several places, because she was pinned under the bike for over two hours until emergency response could get it free. Bellamy fills out the paperwork. Clarke helps Octavia be able to leave the hospital. They both drop her off at her dormitory, where she says she wants to be alone.

Six hours after they arrive at the lobby, they finally return back to their own room.

“Thank you,” Bellamy finally croaks out. The first words he’s been able to speak to her since they arrived at the hospital.

Clarke sends him a glance, before she crawls back into her bed, “…Octavia’s my friend.”

Bellamy takes a deep breath, the first one since the phone call that feels like there's any air getting to his lungs, and shuts out the light.


	3. Olive Branches in Bloom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is super late, I apologize! I got combo slammed by school and also a vicious case of writer's block. but here it finally is, hope you enjoy and thank you for all the positive response, I really appreciate it!

**i.**

He talks in his sleep.

Not often, or at least, not that she’s noticed. But sometimes, when she’s getting ready for her next class and he’s taking one of the numerous cat naps that are supposed to substitute actual sleep, he mumbles things or rolls over to face the wall.

She doesn’t understand most of it. But sometimes she catches repeated phrases or words.

Shum?  
Way.  
Don’t. 

She’s not sure what constitutes as eavesdropping, but it feels like a violation of something to try and understand what these things mean without him volunteering the information. So Clarke changes and brushes her hair, Bellamy apologizes for something, and then she leaves for class and tries not to think about it.

\--

Octavia hasn’t been back to Professor Sydney’s Community Studies class. It’s only been three days, but it’s enough to make Clarke worry. She frowns as she takes her notes, scanning the class for the familiar curtain of brown hair. But no one’s seen her. Jasper and Monty seem equally concerned. And her mind goes back to the night at the hospital, the way Bellamy seemed lost and clueless and in need of something stabilizing. For once not cocky or disdainful. Scared, maybe.

Clarke bites on her lip. And writes something down about Rousseau’s state of nature without really comprehending it.

\--

Atom didn’t have any family who cared enough to pay for a funeral, so Clarke’s surprised to see an e-mail in her school inbox inviting her to a memorial service. She’s sitting in the library, by herself (on a Wednesday. She doesn’t know when she became accustomed to Octavia sitting there and talking about Jasper’s latest stunt or Monty’s newest haircut, but she has and now she keeps looking at the empty chair and _worrying_ ) when she opens it on her laptop.

It’s generic, no title or greeting:

_Please join us for an informal service for Atom Rhys at The Dropship pub. This Friday, at 8:00pm._

She looks up at the e-mail address for the sender and frowns.

_whjaha_

Wells.

She doesn’t know why he’s doing this. Atom never mentioned Wells, and while it’s possible that they were friends or classmates, Clarke highly doubted that Wells and Atom had been good enough friends for him to facilitate this.

But she also knows that as low as her opinion of him is, Wells wouldn’t do something like this as a joke or as a way to get her to talk to him. And, if anything, that made it worse. It’d be better to do this, to be alone, if Wells were easier to hate. But of course he isn’t. That’d be too easy. Instead he organizes memorial services for people he barely knows because no one else would do it.

After a few more seconds of staring, Clarke minimizes the e-mail, but doesn’t delete it. She takes a breath before sending a text message to Octavia.

_How are you?_

When she doesn’t get a response, she cracks open her homework for want of something better to distract her. It’s a half hour and four physics problems later before Clarke gets a response:

_Have to get surgery on my leg. Sucks._

That does suck. But all Clarke feels at seeing the words is relief that Octavia’s still among the living. She pushes her work to the side before replying.

_When?_

A buzz, much sooner this time.

_I don’t know. Bell’s working on scheduling it._

Bell. Bellamy. It’s strange to think of someone like him with a nickname. It’s also hard to draw a connection between the two siblings. The girl who spent an hour looking at the pictures of butterflies in her zoology textbook instead of doing homework, and the guy who read Sophocles at four in the morning. But Clarke remembers his face when he took the phone from her. And she thinks that between Octavia’s desire to always talk about Clarke’s family and the fact that Bellamy is in his mid-twenties and still living in a dorm, that she’s starting to understand something about both of them.

She sighs, before she sends a final text.

_Let me know when it’s scheduled. And if you want company in the meantime. Take care._

Because Clarke knows Lincoln Memorial hospital better than most. And she wants to make sure Octavia gets the best surgeon she can, even if Clarke doesn’t want to consider who that might be.

Her eyes dart to the book in front of her. She’s always liked physics. Clean numbers and logic. Nothing subjective. Nothing complicated. And there’s usually a solution at the end of things.

It’s easier to look at vectors and rates than to think about new friends needing surgery and ex-friends being just a little too hard to hate.

She stays most of the night in the library working on exercises. Every once in a while, she catches herself looking for Bellamy wheeling down his ugly yellow cart, but he never shows. He must have switched his shifts. It doesn’t bother her.

\--

When Clarke creeps back into the dormitories in the morning, she’s not entirely surprised to hear a familiar voice on the other side of her door.

“It’s Blake. B. L. A. K. E. _Blake_.”

She stops her hand from turning the handle. The tension in Bellamy’s voice is palpable and leaking out from underneath the frame, but she takes a deep breath and pushes open the door after a slow mental count of ten.

When she walks in, Bellamy’s still wearing his work uniform, sitting at his desk as one hand clenches and unclenches from a fist and the other is presses his cellphone tight enough for Clarke to see his whitened knuckles. He doesn’t look up as she walks in, and Clarke is mindful of the sound she makes as she sets her books down.

“We’ve been _over_ this. It’s Bellamy. Two l’s. And it’s fucking Tricare-“ a sharp burst on the other end of the conversation, and Bellamy’s face settles into a scowl, “I’m not taking a tone. How about you stop asking me the same question fourteen times expecting a different answer?”

Clarke tries not to eavesdrop. But dorms are small spaces. So instead she takes out her drawing pad and a few charcoal pencils. If she can’t really give him privacy, she can at least provide the illusion of it by blatantly focusing on something else. The conversation continues for another ten or fifteen minutes, with Bellamy repeating “Tricare” with growing aggravation, until he actually slams his fist against the desk.

“What do you mean that’s going to be the co-pay? There shouldn’t be _any_ co-pay-“

Clarke’s pencil stills, just for a second. As she remembers Octavia’s text from earlier that week, about her brother scheduling her surgery. And the lines fall together. If there’s one thing Clarke knows, it’s the inner workings of a hospital. Especially billing.

She hears the undernotes of desperation in Bellamy’s voice, and bites down on her lower lip. Draws an outline.

“Yeah, I know physical therapy’s not cheap-“

It’s not her business. That’s what she should be telling herself. But she thinks about how…un-Bellamy Bellamy looked that night in the waiting room, and of the way Octavia’s face actually lit up when she talked about dance. And she taps the end of her pencil a few more times against the desk.

Twenty minutes later, and Bellamy finally hangs up. He takes a deep, hissing exhale and runs a hand through his disheveled black hair before looking in her direction. He’s silent for a few minutes, but Clarke feels his stare heavy on the back of her head. Challenging, as if daring her to comment on the conversation. She doesn’t. Because it’s not her business.

Finally, he slumps a little in his seat.

“Have you seen Octavia?”

Clarke shakes her head.

“Talk to her at all?”

“A little.” Or close enough, at least.

Bellamy snorts, looking up at the ceiling in a manner that lets Clarke know he’s had just about as much success on that front as she has, “Right.”

It’s there, on the tip of her tongue. An offer. An olive branch. And if it were anyone else, if it would’ve been a year ago, she would’ve made it in a heartbeat. _I know someone at the hospital…_

But it’s not anyone else. It’s Bellamy Blake, who would take any offer of help as an assault. And it isn’t a year ago.

Clarke looks down at the picture she’s been drawing. It’s of a night sky, small, circular motions making small, circular haloes around the stars. It’s not anywhere near the level of the painting on her wall, but it’s an easy enough warm-up sketch.

“Turbulence,” she blurts out, because she’s not sure what else to say, and she senses rather than knows that the last thing Bellamy needs right now is time to stew in his own silence.

“What?” He grumbles, rubbing the heel of his hand against his eyes and suddenly looking like all the sleep he doesn’t get.

“ _Starry Night._ The movement around the stars is supposed to mimic turbulence.” And because he doesn’t say anything, only stares at her with his head tilted just a little, she continues, “It’s a physics concept-“

And the ghost of a grin appears on his face, tugging at the corner of his lips like a gear trying to spin again, “I know what turbulence is.”

For some reason, she grins back. Or presses her lips together in what counts as close enough for her.

The dorm becomes still again. And Bellamy rolls his shoulders. “You done with class?”

Clarke nods.

“It’s been a shit day,” he mutters, dragging his hand down his face.

Clarke twists the pencil between her fingers, “You have a lot of shit days.”

He turns to look at her over his shoulder, eyebrows raising in tandem as he seems to consider her observation, “Yeah. I guess I do.”

She shades another halo. Pauses. Taps the end of her pencil once more. She rolls her shoulders, noticing a sting at the pull of her neck—muscles strained from sitting at a desk for so long. And the words are out before she’s even realized it, “…want to have another one?”

“Not really.”

“Are you free on Friday?”

Bellamy looks at her for a long time, his face twisted in confusion, and it’s not until she seems him literally trying to formulate an “it’s not me, it’s you” speech that she realizes how badly she’s been misinterpreted.

“There’s a memorial for Atom.”

He frowns, then presses his lips tightly together as he recognizes the name, “…the boyfriend.”

Clarke nods, “The boyfriend.”

Bellamy shakes his head, “For a second I thought you-“

Her smile is just a quirk of the lips, but it’s there, “Don’t worry.”

“About?”

“I only ask out people I actually like.”

Bellamy snorts, “Right.” His eyes slide to the phone on his desk and he sighs, “…I can make Friday work. Is O going?”

Clarke thinks about turbulence. About forces in motion that are in contained spheres until they break out and affect others. Thinks about how she’s going to avoid Wells for a few hours in order to be there for Octavia. Thinks about a number that’s still saved in her phone, though it hasn’t been dialed in about eighteen months.

“I’ll forward you the e-mail. Why don’t you double check.”

She feels his stare trained on the back of her head, and she doesn’t need to imagine that he’s waiting for her to spring a trap on him. He’s way too paranoid for his own good, she decides.

“Okay,” and, though she can tell he doesn’t know why he’s saying it, he adds on a “…thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

 **ii.**  

Friday comes quickly, for once.

“Could’ve picked a better first date,” Octavia observes from her spot at the bar, her eyebrow arched in a dark sort of amusement as Clarke and Bellamy enter The Dropship.

The comment doesn’t even register with her. Bellamy barely said two words on the walk over, and ‘memorial service’ doesn’t even register on the same wavelength as ‘mixer.’ Instead, Clarke looks over Octavia with the calm, assessing stare of a future doctor.

She looks rough. Hunched over a drink (which looks suspiciously alcoholic), with her cast-booted leg propped up on a nearby stool, there’s a heaviness about her that indicates exhaustion. Clarke wordlessly takes a seat next to the chair holding her broken leg, as Bellamy takes the one closest to his sister.

Clarke watches as Bellamy puts a hand on Octavia’s shoulder. There’s hesitation, as if he’s apprehensive about moving into a full embrace, and it reminds Clarke painfully of her mother.

“You need to answer your phone,” he says flatly.

Octavia snorts, “I was busy.”

Bellamy’s face is drawn, “With what.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“ _Seriously_ -“

“How’s the leg,” Clarke interrupts, eyes focused on the cast.

Octavia sends her a look caught somewhere between irritation and gratitude, clearly debating an answer, before finally settling on, “…elevated.”

There’s a tug on Bellamy’s lips. Just a little one.

And Clarke sighs, before changing tactics, “You shouldn’t be drinking if you’re on pain medication.”

Octavia shrugs, picking up her glass, “Good thing I’m not, then.”

“Drinking?”

“On pills.”

Bellamy noticeably stiffens in his seat. Octavia casts him a side-glance before she takes another sip.

“You have multiple breaks,” Clarke says.

“So.”

“So you should be taking something for the pain,” Clarke presses.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine-“

She’s surprised when it’s Bellamy who interrupts her, “Drop it, Clarke.”

She stops, looking between the siblings. Octavia’s glaring at her glass, and Bellamy’s jaw is clenched tight. She feels her eyebrows draw down, but after a moment she concedes, “Okay,” she looks to Octavia, “But let me know if you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” she bites out. Then sighs, rolling her neck, “Sorry. Thanks, I mean.”

“…you’re welcome.”

It’s silent. And Clarke begins to tear apart a napkin as Octavia drinks and Bellamy glares at the beverage. Finally, it’s broken up by Raven, as the bartender comes over.

“You two need anything to drink?” She asks, eyes darting around The Dropship.

The bar is oddly quiet for the amount of people in it. Clarke allows herself to look up as well, and she feels a heavy weight sink in her stomach when she sees Wells standing near the sidedoor, offering a pen and what looks like a guestbook to people who filter in. A wave of pity washes over her at the sight. This is all some of them have, after so much time spent at ARC. Something for casual acquaintances to sign. Maybe something like a watch around the wrist. And that’s it.

“You know,” Raven starts off conversationally, “These things are usually done in churches.”

Octavia grips her glass tighter, “It was short notice.”

Raven looks at her, a bare ghost of a frown on her face, “Yeah, I got that.”

“Churches cost money,” Bellamy explains, and Raven turns her attention to him for the first time. Clarke doesn’t miss the initial spark of interest that crosses her face, as she gives him a quick once-over. It’s gone nearly as fast.

“Who’re you?”

Bellamy’s face is stoic, though not hostile, “Octavia’s brother.”

“You didn’t mention a brother,” the bartender gently accuses, not realizing the tension associated with the question.

“Yeah, well,” Octavia mutters, downing the rest of her glass, “For a while I didn’t have one.”

Once again, Clarke watches everything about Bellamy tense. His fingers curl against his thighs, making fists, “That’s not fair-“

“Anyways,” Octavia doesn’t look at him, and instead places the glass on the counter, “I’m gonna go sign the book thing,” she says quietly, pushing herself off the stool and moving the set of crutches under her arms before awkwardly shuffling towards the door.

Raven gives a low whistle. Clarke ignores it, though she notices Bellamy give her a dark look. Her dormmate sits, half off of his stool, and half on, and Clarke sighs as she watches a literal internal dilemma take place.

“Go talk to her,” she says flatly.

Bellamy turns to her, “What?”

“Octavia. Go talk to her.”

He snorts, “Don’t know if you missed all that, but I’m not exactly her favorite person.”

“You’re no one’s favorite person,” Clarke agrees, getting a small amount of satisfaction at seeing his eyes widen, “But that’s not going to change with you sitting here.”

Bellamy stares at her. And shakes his head, before pushing off the stool and following in his sister’s footsteps.

Raven leans against the counter, an amused look on her face that’s at odd with the circumstances, “You Arc kids are just full of drama, aren’t you?”

“Not all of us,” Clarke amends.

“You sure? Because the kicked puppy by the door is _definitely_ looking your way.”

She doesn’t even need to turn, but she does. Wells stands there, and she still knows him well enough to understand the questioning look on his face— _can we talk._

Clarke shakes her head, and turns her back to him before she can see his expression fall.

Raven watches the exchange with interest before smirking, “So. Two dollar vodka?”

She feels the headache already, but it’s still better than thinking. “Two dollar vodka.”

\--

Two hours later, both the Blakes have disappeared out the side door, a drunk who introduced himself as Murphy is making an ass out of himself by giving the third sarcastic memorial speech to “that guy Adam,” and Clarke is in the middle of a game of quarters with Finn (who magically appears like some kind of frat Beetlejuice every time she has three vodka shots) and a boy named Myles, who seems perpetually nervous.

Probably because she’s kicking his ass.

“Five dollars you can’t bounce it off your nose, Princess,” Finn jeers, leaning over the table they’ve relocated to. His arm brushes hers.

Clarke shakes her head, but balances the quarter effortlessly, leaning her head back just a little. With a quick snap, she angles down and the quarter lands on the table, bounces, and makes a small _clink_ as it ends up at the bottom of the beer glass.

Finn’s jaw drops in disbelief. Myles flushes, probably from the beer, before he claps her on the shoulder.

“Pay up, Collins,” he says with a laugh.

Clarke is midway to happily collecting Finn’s money when she hears someone clear their throat behind her. Like a bucket of cold water, reality washes back over her. The one she had been successfully avoiding, if only for an hour or two.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she says in a measured tone, mechanically bouncing coins on the table and refusing to look at him.

“I noticed,” Wells murmurs, hesitantly reaching for her arm. She jerks back before he can touch her, and the entire table seems to go on pause. Finn and Myles both watch, and the last thing Clarke wants is an audience as her former best friend tries to force himself back into her life.

“Then leave.” _Clink,_ as a quarter bounces.

“Five minutes, Clarke. That’s all I’m asking.”

“For what.” Another _clink._

“To get you to stop hating me.”

She feels her teeth grinding, but she still doesn’t turn. Doesn’t look away from the quarters that clinkclink _clink_ into the glass.

Wells sighs behind her, “Clarke-“

“I’ve always been good at quarters,” she says tensely, bouncing another one into a glass, “Do you know why?”

“…no,” Wells doesn’t have to hide his confusion, and she notices him step next to her out of her peripheral vision.

“Because of,” _clink,_ “trajectories.” _Clink, clink,_ “Dad taught me how to use them, when I was learning to play tennis,” she takes a deep breath. She knows she sounds calm. It’s almost scary, how easy it is. To sound _calm_ with Wells. And Clarke senses rather than sees Finn and Myles send each other hesitant looks from the other side of the table.

“Clarke, please-“

“No. You don’t get anything from me,” she hisses, slamming the quarter in her hand onto the table and turning to face him. Wells looks hurt, but not angry. And that only aggravates her more. Because, once again, there is something that makes it difficult to fully hate him in the way he deserves. And it feels like another betrayal.

“Clarke,” Wells presses, his voice low, as if that could make this conversation private, “Your mom’s been calling me-“

“And I’m sure you have a lot to talk about,” Clarke mutters, shrugging on her jacket.

“She’s worried.”

“That’s fine.”

“ _Fine_? You can’t-“

“I’m going home. Don’t follow me,” Clarke cuts off briskly, and before Finn or Myles or _Wells_ can interject, she makes a quick exit from the bar. She thinks, before the door swings shut, she hears Finn awkwardly offer to buy Wells a beer.

\--

Wells must take Finn up on the offer, as he doesn’t come after her. And she’s a little unnerved to realize that it’s almost a relief to enter her dorm room and see Bellamy scowl from the top bunk. At least with him, she doesn’t feel guilt. Not like she does with her former best friend.

Plus, misery loves company. And judging from the dark expression on Bellamy’s face paired with the hopeful stares he keeps shooting his cell phone, she imagines the feeling’s reciprocated.

“Having fun,” she asks caustically, tossing herself onto her bed without bothering to take off anything but her boots.

“Octavia’s not speaking to me again,” she hears him shift above her, “So. Thanks for that advice.”

“She wasn’t going to speak to you anyways.”

“What’s your point.”

Clarke sighs, folding her hands across her stomach and looking up at the underside of his mattress, “I don’t know if I have one.”

She hears a noise that might be a scoff or a chuckle, and the quiet tapping of someone typing out a text message. Clarke closes her eyes and breathes slowly through her nose. And suddenly, it hits her hard and fast—a feeling of nostalgia mixed with grief. Clarke realizes, for the first time in over a year, how much she really misses her mom.

“Bellamy,” she says, hating how her voice gives in to just a little crack.

The typing stops, “Yeah?”

“It’s been a shit day.”

 

**iii.**

It starts the next Monday.

She’s never been a heavy sleeper, so there’s nothing special about the cough that wakes her up besides the noise of it echoing in the room. Clarke keeps her eyes closed, rolling onto her side as her roommate lets out another cough.

And another.

They’re small, little dry noises. Nothing to be concerned about. So after a few more minutes of lying in stillness, she falls back into sleep, and in the morning she doesn’t think about it again.

\--

The next day Clarke wakes up with a headache and a sore throat. Bellamy’s voice is starting to get hoarse and his cough sounds wetter, heavier.

\--

And, as these things often go, it hits them fully by Friday without any other warning.

\--

“You’re not going anywhere,” Clarke croaks from her bed, wrapped up tightly in her comforter. She watches Bellamy, pale and sluggish and so blatantly sick, pause from pulling on his maintenance uniform.

“What?” He croaks in return, blinking glassy eyes.

“You’re contagious.”

“I have work.”

“You don’t go to work when you’re contagious.”

“You do when you need money.”

“Look-“ Clarke takes a deep breath, and her chest pinches before she lets loose a wracking cough, “I’m too tired for this. Just call in. Go back to bed.”

He glares at her, an expression significantly reduced in its threat by the fact that he smells strongly of Dayquil and vapor rub and looks like an extra on _The Walking Dead,_ “I’ll be fine.”

Clarke groans, burrowing deeper into her blanket as a wave of chills passes through her, “If anyone can out-stubborn a virus, it’s you. That’s not my point. You’ll-“ she makes a weak waving motion over her cocooned body, “-spread.”

Bellamy stares at her pathetic, equally Dayquil’d self, and shakes his head before pulling out his cellphone with all the joy of a prisoner accepting a last meal. Clarke warily watches as he punches in a number, bringing the phone to his ear.

“Murphy? I’m not coming in-“ a muted voice responding, “-because you got me sick, you asshole, that’s why.” And just like that it’s over. Bellamy ends his call and sends her a look that clearly articulates _happy now?_ before hopping into his bunk with all the grace of an inebriated sloth.

Clarke can feel fatigue washing over her, and it’s a battle to keep her eyes open.

“How long are we contagious for?” He grunts from his bunk.

She sighs, closing her eyes, and trying to recall the manifestation of symptoms, “I don’t know. Seventy-two hours, maybe.”

“This sucks.”

Clarke doesn’t even bother answering, just rolls over and surrenders to sleep.

\--

The first twenty-four hours pass uneventfully, as they sleep through it, only woken up by the sound of each other’s coughing. By the second day, Clarke is in the unfortunate state between physical exhaustion and mental alertness, and sluggishly turns on the television sitting on top of her desk.

After flipping through a few channels, she finds a decent enough football game, Panthers vs. Cowboys.

“We’re watching football?”

Clarke pauses. _We’re._ She hadn’t realized Bellamy was awake, too.

“It’s playoffs,” she explains, trying to summon up her usual enthusiasm as the offensive line of the Panthers gain ten yards. She notices, for the first time, that Bellamy’s legs are dangling off the end of his bed.

“It’s boring.”

“How.”

“Two lines of brick walls trying to move five feet,” she hears him yawn, “It’s-“ and cough, “-pointless.”

“Do you even watch football.”

“I was in the army. We did the sports bar thing enough times.”

“No, I mean, do you _watch_ football.”

“What’s to watch.”

A memory hits her, sharp and clear, of sitting on the couch with her dad on Sundays. Of going over the rules, the plays, the stats. Of it being _their_ thing. Of the five dollar bets they would exchange. How she never ended up paying them even when she lost.

“That’s Harmon,” she says with her raspy, ailed voice, “He was first draft pick for the Cowboys last season. Linebacker.”

It’s quiet. And she’s about to drop the conversation when she hears a voice, no doubt motivated by boredom, respond.

“Okay. So how’s it different than the tackle.”

“There’s more than one tackle.”

“Why.”

They watch the rest of the game like that, and Clarke’s not surprised when Bellamy decides to root for the Cowboys at halftime. No doubt just to be contrary.

…the Panthers win anyways.

\--

The third day, they have a visitor.

“Thanks for telling me you were sick, asshole. I had to find out from _Murphy,_ ” Octavia grumbles as she opens the door, a plastic bag full of…something in hand as she eases into the dorm.

“You weren’t talking to me,” Bellamy rasps, though Clarke can imagine the smile on his face even if she can’t see him.

Octavia doesn’t answer, instead she looks up and down at the bunk beds, eyebrows ascending towards her hairline. There’s crumpled tissues on the nightstand, empty shot glasses full of cold medicine, and three different heating pads plugged into the outlets. “ _This_ is what you’ve been doing?”

“Flu,” Clarke manages. The scent from the bag smells suspiciously like soup.

The edge surrounding the younger girl seems to blunt in pity, and she shakes her head, shifting over to Clarke’s desk and setting the bag on top of it, “Well. I heard and,” she pulls out a container, peels off the lid, and sniffs, “Attempted soup. We’ll see how it goes.”

“You didn’t have to, O.”

“I know I didn’t have to. But I’m not a total dick,” she says with a small smirk, taking a few awkward steps on one foot until she reaches the bunk bed. Clarke blearily watches as Bellamy’s arm comes down and grabs the container, then retreats back into his replica blanket cocoon. Octavia turns to Clarke, “Don’t worry, I brought some for you too.”

The prospect of soup is enough to get Clarke into a sitting position, and Octavia takes the other side of her bed as she passes Clarke a thermos of what smells like tomato.

“Thank you,” she says, tilting it the thermos back. It’s not bad.

“No problem,” Octavia says, looking nearly mollified.

They eat in comfortable silence, broken by Bellamy coughing, then speaking.

“O, I’m sorry about Friday night-“

“Let’s just drop it,” Octavia says tersely, and no one is more surprised than Clarke when he does with only a second of silent protest.

“How’s the leg?” He tries instead.

His sister takes a few moments to respond, and Clarke isn’t oblivious to the frustration creeping in to her tone, “I met with the doctor.”

“Which doctor?” Bellamy asks, just as the question is on the tip of Clarke’s tongue.

“Jackson,” Octavia says after a moment of thought, and Clarke’s attention heightens into overdrive at the name, “I’m going to need up to a year and a half of physical therapy if I’m ever going to dance again.”

Clarke recognizes it, in a small undercurrent: defeat. It sounds so wrong coming from the girl who walked into campus like she owned it. And Clarke remembers the phone conversation she walked into a week ago, when Bellamy had been screaming into the phone about insurance and billing and something twists in her gut. _Jackson._

Another cough racks Bellamy’s chest, and it then occurs to Clarke that he has never once mentioned making a doctor’s appointment for their mutual illness. While Clarke had her own reasons for avoiding the hospital, his, she suspects, aren’t the same.

“I’ll make it work,” he finally promises. But even though he says it with conviction, Clarke doesn’t doubt that Octavia, like her, can hear the lie in it.

\--

By the fourth day, the fever’s broken, they’re no longer contagious, but they’re definitely miserable. And Clarke watches as Bellamy, who still has a wet cough and the lively complexion of a recent corpse, forces himself out of bed to get ready for a 5am shift.

\--

He’s still an ass. And he’d still take an offer of help as an assault. But Clarke thinks of Octavia, and her leg, and Bellamy’s bull-headedness, and reaches a decision.

It’s still not a year ago. And nothing has changed between her and those involved in her old life. But maybe she can stomach a phone call.

\--

While Bellamy’s at work, Clarke grabs her cellphone. She has to look up the number, since it’s no longer one she knows by memory.

She dials. And the other end picks up after the first ring.

 _“Clarke?_ ”

She closes her eyes, and for a minute, lets the voice wash over her. Lets herself pretend that nothing ever went wrong eighteen months ago. Then Clarke takes a deep breath.

“Hey, mom. I need a favor.”


	4. Self-Realization over a Broken Leg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay again (grad school’s a real mfer). Just as a head’s up, the Linctavia storyline I was originally going to include in this fic kind of took on a life of its own so I’m going to be posting it as a separate spin-off called Ballet and Bikers (which is now up!). Both fics can be read separately on their own, but they are set in the same universe and I’m planning on there being a little crossover. Check it out for Linctavia ft. Bellamy, Clarke, and the Grounders! On that note, there might be a sequel eventually! We’ll see how it goes once this thing is actually finished :D

_Three months later._

**i.**  

“ _Enough_ already.”

The feminine growl knocks Bellamy out of his thoughts, and he sluggishly turns his head to face its source, “What?”

Octavia sent him a sour look as they walk up to the entrance to her physical therapy gym, her hand absently fidgeting with the strap of her duffel bag, “I’m not an idiot. You’re bored as hell at these things.”

Bellamy returned the expression with an eerie similarity as he held the door open for her, “I’m not bored.”

“The sessions are two hours long, four times a week. _I’m_ bored,” she struggles for a moment to get up the steps, huffing a curtain of her hair over her shoulder in irritation as they walked in.

The entrance hall of the gym was nearly empty, lit with big windows and brightened with colorful art displays. The oil paintings always make him think of the pair of Van Gogh prints hanging in his dorm.

And his dormmate. He stops his thoughts there.

“I don’t mind being here,” Bellamy mutters.

Octavia stopped in her tracks, lifting an eyebrow as her hands came to rest on her hips, “Did you ever stop to think about how maybe _I_ mind you being here?”

He frowns, hurt, “What do you mean?”

“Look. It sucks, okay? The leg sucks, the training sucks, not being able to dance _really_ sucks. But it’s-“ she exhales, chewing on her lower lip in frustration, “It sucks more knowing that you’re there the whole time. Watching it suck.”

The frown morphs into a stubborn set of the jaw, “Too bad.”

“Bell, c’mon.”

As they walk closer to the main gymnasium, more people were milling around in the halls, which eventually opened up into exercise spaces. Bellamy watched as several physical therapists, patients, and nurses went through various exercises—stretches, cardio, endurance. His eyes eventually landed on a man across the floor, a guy with a face tattoo and a beard that looked like it escaped a ZZ Top video. Nyko. Octavia’s physical therapist.

Today, the therapist isn’t alone. Nyko supports the elbow of another patient as they lift a small dumbbell together. The patient’s tall, tattooed, and Bellamy instantly recognizes him as the guy who had been watching Octavia go through her calf stretches way too closely last week. As if sensing the signature elder brother disdain, the patient looks up and meets his gaze. Stoically.

Bellamy scowls. And returns the glare. More stoically.

“Are you done sizing up guys in _physical therapy,_ ” Octavia asks, clearly not impressed, “Or you going to sign me in?”

Bellamy reluctantly looks away from Nyko and his other (probably criminal) patient in order to sign the clipboard at the welcome desk. As soon as the pen hits the paper, Octavia tosses her duffle bag into a nearby locker.

“Bell, seriously. You don’t have to stay here-“

“It’s fine-“

“-I’ll be alright,” Octavia finishes, her voice going just a little bit softer.

The change in tone makes Bellamy pause, turning to look down at her as she slowly readjusts her leg brace. His mind goes back to her earlier words. And realization finally settles in.

Octavia’s leg is busted, but her pride is hurt, too.  
And Bellamy can understand that. Unfortunately. 

He sighs, running a hand through his hair and mussing it. He lets out a slow release of breath from his nose, trailing his attention again to the bearded hippie and the tattooed convict. Nyko notices Octavia, and smiles in his taciturn way, waving her over. Tattooed convict’s jaw just clenches as his bad arm struggles to lift up a weight on its own.

Octavia hesitantly waves back to them.

Bellamy thought of the pamphlet. Of the little girl running into someone’s arms for a hug. About _transitioning._ And…maybe the first step is backing off. Just a little. For now.

“Call me when it’s over, or if you need me,” he relents, resting a hand on her shoulder and dipping his head to meet her eye-level, “I mean it. For anything. Call.”

For the first time since the crash, Octavia’s smile is wide, “Yeah. I will.”

Bellamy waits for her to start her warm-up stretches before he leaves, knowing he made a good call in letting her do this for herself, but still not happy about doing it.

\--

He’s finishing his last round of washing up blackboards when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. Since he’s never felt right about using being on the phone when he’s supposed to be working—even when no one’s around to care otherwise—he lets it go to voicemail. When it’s almost three am, and he’s tired and sore, he locks up his cart and digs the damn thing out of his jumpsuit.

_Missed Call: Lincoln Memorial Hospital (O)_

He swears, punching in his password and listening to the recording.

_“Good evening, Mr. Blake. I’m sorry for the time, I’m finally out of a transplant surgery-“_

He knows the voice. It’s Octavia’s surgeon. She sounds like shit, but there’s that same steel undertone to her words that he remembers from Octavia’s procedure a few months ago.

_“-and I thought you’d appreciate an update, regardless of the hour. I was reviewing Octavia’s files with the hospital’s allocated budget for pro-bono surgeries-“_

Bellamy’s fingers tighten around the phone. It feels like his throat’s seized up.

_“-and it looks like we will be able to cover the bill for the surgery in full-“_

He blinks, and turns up the volume of his phone. He can’t be hearing it correctly-

“ _-as well as offer a reduced co-pay on the remainder of Octavia’s physical therapy. I’d like to schedule a meeting with the both of you sometime this week to go over some paperwork. Give me a call, thanks.”_

The message ends with a harsh beep. And Bellamy sags against a nearby wall, unable to stop the spread of an exalted grin as it takes over his face.

Maybe, just maybe, this is what catching a break feels like.

\--

When Bellamy’s day finally ends, it’s four in the morning and he’s careful to be quiet as he opens the door to his dorm. The room’s dark, save for the blue glow of his alarm clock on his desk.

Clarke’s asleep.

Bellamy pauses at the door as he bends down to untie his shoes, eyes drifting toward her bed. Her blonde, curly hair is splayed out over the pillow in messy waves, her comforter tangled around her legs. His gaze moves slowly over her until it lands on her face.

Over the months of living with her, Bellamy’s discovered that there’s nothing different about Clarke when she’s asleep. Her features never relax—there’s still the faint frown lines in the corners of her mouth, still the slight furrow to her brow. Her hands, more often than not, are curled into loose fists ready to hit someone. Bellamy’s suspected for a while now that Clarke’s messed up—that she’s got her own bag of skeletons to match his own.

Bellamy frowns as he watches her breathe slowly through her sleep-parted lips.

What he isn’t sure about is when it started to bother him that she was messed up. Bellamy was never one for life stories or tragic baggage, never mind listening to them from people who weren’t Octavia, but Clarke is…

Clarke is fucking weird, for one.

He isn’t an idiot. People, especially surgeons, don’t do their work for free. And hospitals sure as shit don’t reduce their fees out of the goodness of their hearts. The fact that Octavia’s surgeon is named Abby Griffin isn’t a bizarre coincidence. Clarke had helped Octavia fix her leg, gave her a shot at still pursing dance for a career.

They owed her. _He_ owed her.

But she hadn’t mentioned it. For the first month, he’d been angry about it. Waiting, for the secret favor she’d have for him, for the _quid per quo._ It never came. The second month, he grew paranoid, thinking Clarke was simply biding her time for something bigger.

As he entered the third month, and now a nearly paid-in-full hospital bill, he was just. Confused.

He’d tried to ask her directly about it, but every time Octavia’s surgery or physical therapy would come up, Clarke would find somewhere else to be or end the conversation. Eventually he stopped trying.

But Bellamy knew they couldn’t keep dancing around the elephant in the dorm. He wasn’t going to be in anyone’s debt if he could help it. And…Well. He should probably thank her. Or do something to make up for it.

The thought makes his stomach twist. What was he going to do with his paycheck, buy her coffee? That’d make a great card: _thanks for saving our asses, here’s a latte_ or _Please don’t let this be a form of financial blackmail_ tied to one of those biscotti things. Right.

He stands. Kicks off his boots.

“Bellamy?”

The rasped voice makes him pause, and he slowly turns back to Clarke. She looks up from where she’s laying, blinking away sleep and obviously trying to get her bearings.

“Sorry,” he mutters automatically, sure his boots crashing against the floor was enough to wake her up—that was another thing he’d noticed. Clarke is the lightest sleeper on the planet _._ It almost reminds him of being back in the barracks.

“You’re okay,” she grumbles back, pushing herself into a sitting position, “I was getting up anyway.”

He snorts, “Like hell. It’s four in the morning.”

Clarke gives a forced grin, “Midterms.”

“Aren’t for another week.”

“Close enough.”

He grins back at her, just a little. They stay in a comfortable silence for a moment, her still laying half in bed, and him leaning against the wall in his maintenance uniform. The thoughts about Octavia and Dr. Abby Griffin and co-pays cross his mind, fast and furious, and he needs to just fucking call her out on it because he’s tired of Octavia’s surgery hanging like a dark cloud over his shoulder.

“So-“

“How’d Octavia’s appointment go?”

Bellamy isn’t sure how he feels about the question. It’s been too long since anyone, besides him, cared enough to ask something like that. Whatever else might be going on in Clarke’s weird, weird brain, at least he feels almost certain that she’s really Octavia’s friend. Maybe that’s enough, for trust. For now.

He answers carefully, “Good, I think. I left her there.”

Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up, “By herself?”

He scowls, “There were therapists.” And tattooed guys with busted arms. He’s not going to think on the latter too much.

She shakes her head, “No, I just-“

“What?”

“-it’s not like you,” she says with a shrug and a yawn. The strap of her tank top slips to over her shoulder and Bellamy watches as she absent-mindedly pushes it back up.

He wants to ask how she knows what’s like him, but thinking of nights in the library and crying sisters in hospital lobbies makes him cut off the statement. Try to be better about it.

“Yeah, well,” Bellamy jams his hands in his pockets. Tries to be honest instead of defensive, “She asked me to.”

“And you listened?”

“It does happen, sometimes.”

She gives a little smile, swinging her legs off to the edge of the mattress. And Clarke stands before he has enough time to back away and give her room. For a second she’s right in front of him, and he notices for the first time that, in addition to being fucking weird, Clarke is also shorter than him _._ His chin could probably rest on her head.

Bellamy clears his throat, “The hospital’s covering the costs of the surgery.”

Clarke tenses, before stepping away. He frowns at her back as she reaches over to grab a hoodie from her desk, “…good.”

“That’s all you got to say?”

“Should there be something else.”

“You tell me.”

She sends him a look he can’t decipher, before shrugging on her sweatshirt, “Can you hit the light switch.”

He does. Reluctantly.

When Clarke ignores him, going instead about her daily routine of gathering books and pencils, his jaw clenches and the words leave before he bothers to stop them.

“You know an Abby Griffin?”

Clarke goes from tense to rigid, watercolor case snapping shut with a harsh sound. Bellamy takes her momentary silence for avoidance and like hell that’s happening again.

“Well?” He presses.

Clarke stands up straight, rolling her shoulders before turning to him, “She’s my mom. Happy?”

A straight answer is the last thing he’s expecting. A straight answer with hostility even more so, “Why’d you do it?”

“Like I told you,” Clarke mutters, shouldering a strap of her bag, “Octavia’s my friend.”

“We can’t repay you.” The admission hurts his pride, but it’s the truth.

“I’m not asking you to repay me, I didn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit. You saved Octavia’s leg.”

“My mom saved Octavia’s leg.”

“Look,” Bellamy growls, unable to keep the irritation from leaking into his words, “Calling in a favor at the hospital might not mean anything to you, but it means something to me. So cut the crap and let’s talk.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“People don’t just. Do shit for people,” he finally concedes, stepping closer to her, “Not without wanting something. So. What do you want?”

Clarke crosses her arms and stares up at him. He matches the position, trying and failing not to get severely pissed off at the rich girl who apparently still wants him to jump through hoops. She finally lets out a long, aggravated sigh.

“Is it so hard to believe that I just wanted to help.”

“Yes,” he says instantly, though he works his jaw before continuing. What he says next is a concession he’s not entirely comfortable giving, “…No one’s helped us before without expecting something in return.”

Clarke only stares at him, and it makes him feel small and exposed. Finally, she comes to a decision, “Okay.”

His brows furrow, “…Okay?”

She nods, “Okay. I’ll think of something.”

Before he really gets a chance to respond (or, really, to figure out what has even happened), she holsters her bag and walks out of the dorm.

\---

Bellamy stays staring at the empty space for a few seconds after she’s gone.

 

 **ii.**  

“Thank you for meeting with me,” the older woman’s small, but there’s an intensity to her that doesn’t leave when she smiles and waves an arm at the two empty chairs in front of her desk, “Please, sit.”

Octavia plops down without ceremony, but Bellamy’s movements are a little slower. He can’t help himself, as he tries to find similarities in between his dorm mate and Dr. Abigail Griffin. His chair makes a dry scraping sound as he slowly lowers himself into a chair.

“Please, I owe you,” Octavia says, but Bellamy notices that there’s still a hollowness to how she talks, that her eyes don’t meet his, “The least we could do was stop by and sign some forms, right Bell?”

“Right,” he says, but his eyes don’t leave from Dr. Griffin. She hasn’t stopped smiling, but he feels like part of her wants to. He swallows, shaking his head, “Thank you.”

Dr. Griffin inclines her head before taking a spot behind her own desk, “It’s nothing. I’m happy to help.”

“Still, you saved my ass,” Octavia continues, and it even sounds genuine, “Without you, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

Dr. Griffin’s lips only tighten into a grin, and she sends Octavia an assessing look that Bellamy immediately doesn’t like, “So how do you know Clarke?”

“Clarke?” Octavia asks, and Bellamy immediately sees her blinking just a little too widely for it to be believable, “You know Clarke?”

So Octavia apparently knows something he doesn’t about Clarke and her mom. Great.

Dr. Griffin looks almost stricken, but Bellamy knows that it’s from an old wound and not a new one, “My daughter.”

Octavia sends him a slow look out of the corner of her eye. He matches it. She gives an almost imperceptible shake of the head before she continues, “Clarke and I go way back.”

Dr. Griffin withdraws a manila folder from her filing cabinet, and Bellamy sees her tense (and finally sees the resemblance—the straightening of the shoulders, the tension in her jaw as her eyes narrow), “…I assume from the Adolescent Rehabilitation Center?”

“Arc, yeah.”

He watches her carefully, waiting for a tell in her expression. Waiting for judgement. If she does, Abby Griffin gives no indication of showing it as she only calmly withdraws some paperwork, “Are you part of the Grounded University program, then?”

Octavia swallows, and Bellamy frowns at the blatant guilt on her face before she steels herself, “Yeah, for now. Long enough to wait out my probation period, anyway.”

“You’re not interested in an education?”

“I’m a dancer. It’s not the type of education I want.”

“And Clarke, she’s still enrolled there as well?”

He doesn’t miss the strained note of hope in the question. It also doesn’t stop him from his next, intrusive question, “Shouldn’t you know that?”

A wince quickly flickers across Dr. Griffin’s face, before she clears her throats and offers him a form and a pen, “I believe the insurance is in your name?”

She already knows the answer to that question, seeing as they’ve filled out about a hundred forms already. But he sees a diversion when it’s presented to him (and yet another similarity between mother and daughter). Hesitantly, he takes the pen, reads through some standard paperwork, and signs before sliding the form for Octavia to do the same.

A few seconds pass, and Bellamy decides he’s getting sick of unsaid questions, “So. What do you want to know?”

Octavia’s eyes flash, “Bell-!”

Dr. Griffin snaps her attention to him, “What do you mean?”

“You did this for us because a daughter you never see asked you to. There must be a reason.”

Dr. Griffin looked at her desk, a frown playing on her features as her fingers play absently with a ballpoint pen. Octavia is full-out glaring at Bellamy, but he ignores her in favor of keeping his stare trained on Clarke’s mother.

Just when he thinks she’s not going to say anything, she asks, “Is Clarke alright?”

“She’s fine.”

“Has she-?” Dr. Griffin shakes her head, looking at her desk.

Bellamy finishes the unsaid question, “No, she hasn’t asked about you.”

Dr. Griffin deflates in her chair, and when she looks up once more her smile is only a little watery, “I…” she rubs at the corners of her eyes with the heels of her hand, “I’m sorry. I just remembered I have a consultation after this-“ she gathers the forms, places them into the folder, “I’ll be happy to see that Billings gets these.”

Octavia sends him a poisonous look before slowly pushing herself up, “Thanks, Dr. Griffin. Really. You…” she frowns, not sure what to do with feeling gratitude. Bellamy’s familiar with the uncomfortable sensation, “You made a difference for me. Probably the first person besides Clarke and my brother to try.”

He has nothing to add to that but a nod. One he means. Whatever family drama he’s suddenly found himself in the middle of, it’s worth it for Octavia getting a chance to do something she wants for once.

The older woman smiles, “I. Thank you.”

Bellamy follows his sister out of the door, but her voice stops them, “Mr. Blake.”

He halts, looking over his shoulder, “Yeah?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

He only barely stops his snort. Of course she does, “What is it.”

“If you see Clarke, tell her I’m sorry. For everything. And that I’d like to talk to her, whenever she’s ready to talk.”

Bellamy finally nods. He can give Clarke a message. After that, it’s up to her if she wants to do anything with it.

\--

He doesn’t even realize she’s there until a pair of tickets land on his copy of Isocrates. Bellamy blinks, slowly pulling out an earbud. _Where Eagles Dare_ sounds off in distortion as he meets Clarke’s expectant stare from where she leans against the frame of his desk.

“I’ve figured out how you’re paying me back,” she says.

He looks at her, to the tickets on his desk. And doesn’t know what the fuck she’s on about this time, “…an art show.”

“Friday.”

“You’re kidding.”

“As I am known to do,” she replies dryly.

“You saved me thousands in medical expenses and you want me to take you out on a-“

“ _No._ It’s an art show. That’s all.”

He still can’t make heads or tails of the situation. And it crosses his mind to be angry, to consider this is a trick or prank for the weekly charity case. Instead he only presses his lips together, slowly pulling out the other earbud and silencing his iPod, “And. You want _me_ to go with.”

“It’s-“ something changes in her tone. And it’s something dark, “-it’s a benefit hosted by someone from before. I don’t feel like going by myself."

Bellamy can understand _before._ He can also understand how _after_ makes it hard. How you can’t go back to something once you’ve left it. His mind goes, briefly, to the deserts of Afghanistan and the waiting rooms of social workers’ offices before he shakes his head, “…then why go at all. We have a museum nearby.”

He feels like an asshole for asking when something troubled crosses her face, “Because we used to go every year.”

Bellamy doesn’t know who _we_ is, and doesn’t get to ask before she surges ahead in typical Clarke fashion, “If you don’t want to go, I’m not going to make you.”

He thinks about the strange meeting in her mom’s office earlier today. About Octavia trying to stretch out her leg at physical therapy. And, for a reason he’s not sure of, about when Clarke tried to explain football to him for around the hundredth time with no results.

Bellamy looks at the date and time on the tickets. He has to work, but something stops him from saying it. Maybe it’s because he owes her.

He sighs, “I’ll go.”

And immediately doesn’t regret the decision, as Clarke’s features soften, just a little, in relief, “Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Art shows are best when you don’t have to talk to the people you’re with.”

 

**iii.  
**

“You sure this isn’t a date?” Octavia asks, absently shoveling popcorn in her mouth as Bellamy attempts, not for the first time, to figure out how to get the tie right. It’s the same kelly green one he used to wear with his dress uniform, but it’s been awhile since he’s needed to wear one. 

“Why would it be a date. She hates me,” he says flatly, trying not to hiss in annoyance when he looks in the mirror on Octavia’s wall and his Windsor is crooked. Again.

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“She called me a bully.”

“You _are_ a bully.”

His upper lip twitches in annoyance, and he runs down a hand to smooth the tie that is starting to look a little straighter, “How’s this?”

Octavia stares at him, “…like you’re getting ready for a date.”

“O.”

“Bell.”

And because it’s Octavia, the one person he trusts implicitly, he sighs, “She helped us out. This is all she asked for in return. I don’t want to screw it up.”

A loud _crunch_ as Octavia bites down on another handful, “Because you having an ugly tie is going to reverse my leg surgery.”

“It’s not ugly.”

“It’s extremely ugly.”

He can feel his nostrils flare, “I only have the one.”

Silence falls over the dorm (which, he notices, only looks half-lived in and he’s sure the half with framed pictures of golden retrievers and white-picket fences is not Octavia’s) and she sets aside the popcorn bag to send him a troubled look.

“That the one they gave you in the army?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters a little,” she stands, and though her leg is in a brace instead of a cast, there’s still a small limp to her gait as she goes to stand in front of him, “You want me to…?”

“Sure.”

She undoes his knot and redoes it into one that’s a little bit straighter. He has no idea where she learned to do such a thing. He has no idea how she grew up, really. The thought hits him in rarer moments, but it hurts every time.

“You’re not going to embarrass yourself, Bell.”

The comment gives a familiar twist to his stomach, “Why would I embarrass myself?” He asks, though he’s a little taken aback by his sister’s perception.

“Because we aren’t the type to go to _benefits,_ ” Octavia says, raising a pinkie half-heartedly at the word before stepping back, “I don’t think Clarke is, either. For what that’s worth to you.”

“She’s still one of them, even if she’s your friend.”

“She’s your friend too, you idiot. If you’d let her be,” Octavia rolls her eyes, “And she’s not one of them. She’s one of us. She’s Arc.”

Arc. He frowns.

“…you ever find out what she went for?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He looks at his sister. Octavia, who’s loyal and brave and a dancer and a pain in the ass and hates pineapple on her pizza. How pissed he’d get if anyone tried to reduce her to just her criminal record. How wrong they’d be to do so. A troubled look falls on his face.

“I guess it doesn’t.”

Octavia looks at him for a moment, before she snorts, lightly punching him in the arm, “Go rub elbows with the other half, tiger.”

Bellamy turns to look down at her, and his next question is soft as he looks, once more, at her side of the dorm that is bereft of posters, books, clothes, or anything that really makes the space _hers,_ “You okay?”

Octavia shrugs, “…I’m working on it.”

“O-“

“Save the sappy shit for after your date.”

“It’s not a date.”

“God, Bell. At least _pretend_ to like people for once.”

\---

The walk from Octavia’s dorm to his isn’t a long one, but he’s surprised to see Clarke already waiting for him in the lobby. And wearing a dress.

It’s not something that immediately speaks to money: black, knee-length. Simple. Worn with some complicated looking shoes. But she wears it better than he could ever wear an ugly tie. She’s not fidgeting with the hem, or trying to loosen the collar. When she walks in her heels, it’s with an easy confidence that he knows comes from wearing these sorts of outfits and going to these sorts of _benefits_ often.

He pushes up the sleeves of his button-up shirt past his elbows, and jams his hands in his pockets, “Ready?”

Clarke’s eyebrows raise, “…you’re wearing a tie.”

 _Did you not think I owned one?_ Is on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back. “You’re wearing a dress,” he dryly observes instead.

He’s surprised when she grins, “Did you not think I owned one?”

Bellamy blinks, not sure what to do with the question. Instead he pulls out the tickets from his pocket, “Here.”

Clarke steps forward to take one. Her fingers brush his for a second before she nods, “Do you want to walk over?”

He looks at her shoes. Strappy, pointed things that look miserable to stand in, let alone walk a couple of blocks.

She tilts her head, “I’m tougher than I look.”

Bellamy shrugs, “Lead the way.”

\---

The walk to the art show is spent in companionable silence. She keeps her hands tucked in the pockets of her leather jacket (did they allow society girls to wear biker jackets with dresses to art shows?), and he can’t help but send her looks out of the corner of his eye.

He wants to ask her about why she was in Arc. Why she decided to help him and his sister. What the deal was with her mom.

Why she wanted him, of all people, to go with her to this thing. And if he was her charity case, meant to make herself feel better or…

_She’s your friend too, you idiot. If you’d let her be._

Or if she didn’t hate him.

Instead he just keeps a healthy amount of distance, and decides he’s not going to pretend that he’s the type of guy to regularly go to art shows in a tie. She asked _him,_ after all. Maybe that meant he was okay to go to this kind of thing.

\---

Before they go in, he takes off his tie and crumples it into a wad before throwing it in his pocket. She doesn’t say anything. And he doesn’t know why it makes him feel relieved, but it does.

\---

“I know this one,” Clarke says, breaking a near half-hour long silence as they stand in front of a painting.

The art show is. Basically how he imagined an annual art show going. They walked in, some lady took their coats, and then another guy in a sports coat gave the pair of them flutes of some kind of white wine. He wasn’t sure how to hold it, so he settled on gripping it like a beer, a few sips left in it since he’s also not sure where the damn things go once they’re done. Maybe rich people just threw glassware away after a single use.

Aside from the stuffiness, and the few snide looks from people he didn’t know, it hasn’t been that bad. The gallery was well-lit, bright in a way which reminds him of the entrance to Octavia’s physical therapy hall. And he likes art, as a principle. Probably not as much as Clarke, but he knows enough about painting to recognize that the ones he’s looking at are good.

The one Clarke’s frowning at looks good enough—a landscape, with a blacked-out lighthouse and a big, orange sunset in the background. Ships in the harbor.

Not sure what to say, Bellamy tries to offer what he can, “Nice colors.”

He’s surprised when she turns and smiles at him, “My dad liked this artist. He’d buy her paintings sometimes and bring them home.”

“Is that why you started? Painting, I mean.”

Clarke takes a sip of whatever wine she has, “Yeah. He put up a bunch in my room. Next to Cowboys posters.”

Bellamy looks at the painting. He sees a ship, but he’s pretty sure that’s not just what Clarke’s seeing, “I’m guessing he’s who you usually go with to this thing?”

Her smile lessens, just a little. And he sees the formation of tears in her eyes, though she blinks them away before they fall. Suddenly, something she said months ago makes sense.

_My dad died tomorrow._

“Shit,” he lets out in a ragged exhale, “I’m sorry Clarke. That’s not my business-“

She gives a shrug that is clearly forced, and starts walking away, “We’d better look at the rest.”

Bellamy looks at her, then the painting. It’s not the best one here, he doesn’t think. Probably not even in the top half. But.

He takes one of his three strategically-remaining sips of wine, and then gently grabs her arm, “I’m not done looking at this one.”

Clarke turns to face him, and for a moment they just stare at each other. He notices that a strand of her hair has fallen out from her bun, curling against her neck. Bellamy lets his grip fall slowly from her wrist.

Finally, she nods. “Okay. If you want.”

\---

They stare at the same painting for a half hour.

\---

As they leave, Bellamy notices that Clarke’s deliberately steering them away from the main entertainment area for the gallery. He lets her, because tonight’s her call, but curiosity gets the better of him and he tries to figure out what it is that she’s avoiding.

Nothing’s of notice. And the only thing that sticks out as even remotely interesting is the Mayor, Thelonious Jaha, socializing with some other black-ties.

He thinks nothing of it, and stashes his wine glass on small cheese table.

\---

The walk back begins with the same companionable silence, but something’s weighing on his chest still. He’s repaid one debt (no matter how unorthodox the payment was), but he still owes someone something.

The night air is brisk, but not cold. And he has his jacket slung over one shoulder. Clarke, apparently giving up on the heels, is walking barefoot with the straps of her shoes dangling from two of her fingers.

…they’re getting along. He thinks. He almost hates to ruin it.

“Your mom-“

“I don’t want to talk about my mom,” there’s no venom in Clarke’s voice. Only a numb sort of finality. For some reason, that seems worse.

“She wants you to talk to her. Says she’s sorry.”

Clarke’s chin juts out as her fingers tighten on her shoes, “I don’t care.”

Bellamy shrugs, “Okay.”

She looks at him, bewildered, “Okay?”

“I told her I’d give you the message. What you do next is up to you.”

“…you don’t think it’s weird?”

Bellamy doesn’t manage to fight the grin, “You’re weird in general,” he swallows, thinking about _quid per quo,_ and looks down at the ground, “but I’m not one to judge relationships with messed up parents.”

Clarke is quiet next to him, though when her arm brushes against his, he notices that they’re walking closer to each other than they did on the way there, “What are yours like?”

The question sinks straight to the bottom of his chest. It’s not a question he’s even thought about in some time. Bellamy keeps looking at the ground, biting the inside of his cheek, “My dad died when I was young. Didn’t really know him. Octavia’s isn’t in the picture. Wasn’t _ever_ in the picture.”

“And your mom?”

He closes his eyes. Remembers a courtroom and a promise. _Your sister, your responsibility._

“Prison. Or rehab. I’m not sure. Stopped keeping track a few years ago.”

He tenses. Waits for the _sorry._ It’s always a sorry.

“So it’s just you and Octavia, then.”

Something unwinds in him, “Yeah. It’s just us.” _When I was around. When she wasn’t in foster care or juvie and I wasn’t in the desert._ Bellamy clenches his jaw, not wanting to think about it anymore, “How was your dad?”

She slows a bit in her step, and he adjusts his gait to match hers, “Great,” her voice breaks, and it’s enough for him to look at her in concern. Her eyes are wet again, “My dad was great.”

He’s not sure why he does it. Maybe it’s because she helped him and his sister when no one else would. Maybe it’s because he _has_ been a bully and he knows that’s not how he was meant to turn out, not how his mom would’ve wanted him to turn out before everything went to shit. Or maybe it’s because she let him take off his tie, or showed him a painting she didn’t have to show him. Whatever the reason is, Bellamy closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then slings his arm over her shoulders as they walk, pressing her carefully against his side.

Clarke goes rigid, looking up at him.

He scoffs, “What.”

“I thought you hated me.”

He gives a dry, airless chuckle at that, and the two of them adjust to each other’s steps. Then they head back to the dorm room, in a silence that matches the peacefulness of the starry night above them.


	5. Undergoing as a Couple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who nominated this fic for the Bellarke Fanfiction Awards! Van Gogh and Vodka is now a finalist for Best Roommate fic, awwww yeah y’all are amazing!!
> 
> Also, as a disclaimer, I Stared At The Wall a lot trying to fit Jake’s death into the AU, and I’m still not 100% happy with it. I realize I am playing fast and loose with the legal definition of treason, and I’m definitely not a lawyer, so I hope everyone is able to suspend disbelief in that area :P

**i.**

“Thank you for meeting with me,” her mom says, shrugging out of her coat and placing it on the back of the patio chair.

Clarke doesn’t look away from the menu—half of it in French—and her hand absently fiddles with the band of her dad’s watch, “It wasn’t my idea.”

Abby hesitates as she stands, as if she’s waiting for Clarke to stand, too. For them to embrace each other. But it doesn’t work like that. Clarke feels physically rooted to her chair, unable to even raise her gaze from the table. It’s her mom, and it’s a stranger. And Clarke’s not the same person she was before she was sent away. Not as forgiving.

“Still,” Abby clears her throat, and Clarke hears the scrape of a chair against the concrete of the patio where they’re having lunch, “I know we have a lot to talk about-“

Clarke stops her with the smallest shake of her head, “There’s not much to say.”

“…then why meet with me at all.”

Clarke takes a deep breath. Looks up from the menu. Somehow, Abby Griffin looks exactly the same as the day they led Clarke out of the courtroom. Her hair is free of any greys, braided easily over a shoulder. Surprisingly, she’s not wearing scrubs even though Clarke knows this is the middle of her work day—instead she’s dressed up in sharply tailored dress clothes. Composed. Level-headed. It was always easy for her mom, to weather whatever storm comes at her.

It’s not that easy for Clarke. She takes a sip of the wine she’s ordered—prosecco, the same type she had at the art show last week—and rests her fists on the table, “I want to talk about dad.”

“Clarke…”

“You owe me some answers,” she says curtly, and she knows that Abby is caught off-guard by the steel in her words, “About what happened outside the house.”

Abby’s eyes squeeze shut in their own type of pain, “Clarke. If I could change things I would-“

“But you can’t. So let’s talk.”

Her mother folds her hands in her lap. And Clarke watches as Abby pulls herself together—as she looks at Clarke like she’s a stint to put in an artery or a vein to reconstruct, “Have you spoken with Wells?”

The question throws her off, “Why would I talk to Wells.”

“He’s your best friend.”

“Was.”

“But he volunteered for the ARC program. I just assumed-“

The news throws Clarke off. Wells was the poster boy growing up—son of a successful if not always popular politician, honor societies. Future Leaders of America. And ARC was a program only open to former offenders. She frowns, not sure what to do with the information and therefore compartmentalizing it for now, “I’ll ask the questions.”

Abby’s jaw clenches, “Clarke, this isn’t an interrogation.”

Clarke swallows down another sip of prosecco. It _is_ an interrogation. Otherwise it’s just brunch. And that’s not who Clarke is anymore. She drains her glass. And asks the simple question that’s been resting on her mind for almost two years now.

“How did they know where to find him.”

Clarke stares her mother’s face. Measuring, waiting. Abby’s eyes well with tears. The sun catches the glass lens on her dad’s watch, casting a glare that cuts through the clear liquid of her wine.

“This isn’t why I came here today,” Abby finally settles on, pulling one of the cloth napkins free of the cutlery and placing it on her lap.

“How did they know where to find dad,” Clarke presses, and she hates how there’s just the smallest hitch to her voice.

Her mother draws a deep breath, but her hands keep smoothing the cloth over her legs. Over and over again.

“How did-“

“It was released,” Abby cuts her off from asking the question a third time, eyes trained on the napkin and its imaginary wrinkles she can’t fix.

“By who.”

“Thelonious.”

Clarke’s stomach twists, soured further by the wine she’s been drinking on an empty stomach, “…and who told him.”

But she already knows the answer. Because only three people knew where Jacob Griffin was staying the night before the trial. Clarke was one of them. And that meant the person who told Wallace’s people was either Wells, or…

Abby’s fingers still on the napkin, and before Clarke realizes what’s happening her mother is reaching for her hand.

“Clarke, listen-"

“Don’t _,_ ” Clarke hisses under her breath, retracting her hand.

“He was looking at a life sentence, I wanted Thelonius to _talk_ to him about a plea-“

“ _Don’t._ ”

Abby’s own curls into a fist against the linen tablecloth, and with it she becomes Surgeon Griffin once more. The person who tells someone’s family about complications during procedure while they sit in the waiting room, “If you need someone to blame, Clarke. Blame the shooter.”

She can hear the blood rushing through her ears, and for a moment Clarke steps out of herself. She stares at the edge of the white porcelain plate in front of her, clean and gleaming. At the slowly rising bubbles in her wine. Feels every heartbeat in her chest, slow and steady. And she tries not to be _there_ , at that night over a year ago that ended up with her owning a watch and a tombstone to visit every other Friday.

Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Her mom is still talking.

“I have to go,” Clarke says quietly, pushing her chair out.

“Clarke-“

Abby doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. And Clarke doesn’t wait long enough for her to figure it out.

\--

Two hours later, her hands are caked in charcoal film, there’s a mostly-finished sketch of the Andromeda Galaxy in her drawing pad, and Clarke is starting to feel something passing for okay.

That’s when the door opens. She doesn’t turn from looking at her work, but the constantly bunched-up muscles of her neck and shoulders go slack. Having him here helps, for reasons she’ can’t articulate. But she knows when she’s around Bellamy she doesn’t have to be anyone else—she can be as dislikeable as she wants and there’s security in knowing he’ll never cry or beg over it. And since the night at the art show, things have been…settled. Between them. Comfortable.

Close to comfortable.

“Hey Clarke,” Bellamy mutters in greeting, and she feels his eyes land somewhere between her shoulder blades. Then travel to her arms, and the sketchpad underneath them. “…creating?”

“Something like that,” she runs the charcoal in her hand in a smooth crescent. The drag of it makes a rasp that fills up the space he doesn’t occupy.

“Does that mean another shit day.”

The corners of her lips turn up. It shouldn’t be a relief to hear that. But it is. And there’s something calming about having the obvious exposed for once.

“It does.”

“School?”

“Brunch.”

His footsteps cross the threshold of their shared living space, and she looks up from her sketch as he slings himself into his own desk chair. Bellamy’s arm topples over the back of it like a broken marionette, and she notices he’s wearing the same shirt he wore yesterday.

“Brunch,” he repeats, rolling the syllable around on his tongue like it’ll help him develop a taste for the concept.

She wipes her hands off on her jeans. Dark streaks trail behind her fingers. “Brunch. And you look like you had a shit day, too.”

“I did.”

“Work?”

“Boyfriend.”

Clarke tilts her head.

“O. O’s boyfriend,” his eyes dart away from hers, and he’s suddenly preoccupied with the rubber eraser on his desk, “Not mine. I don’t have one. I’m not-“ he sighs. Starts again, “O’s boyfriend.”

“Didn’t realize she was seeing anyone.” Which is a lie. Or nearly a lie. While her time at Nyko’s gym has kept Octavia busy, the two still have their Wednesday nights. And the name _Lincoln_ ’s been coming up with increasing frequency.

“She says she’s not. But there’s always this guy around at the gym and he dropped her off at her dorm this morning...” Bellamy waves his hand, as if the motion could dispel either the conversation or guy or both. The grumpy look on his face makes her grin. It’s…strangely endearing.

She slides her gaze to the galaxy she’s sketching. After a few seconds of mental consideration, she comes to the conclusion that she needs something else to distract her from thoughts of brunch. And the stomach it didn’t fill seems like a good place to start.

“Have you had dinner yet?”

Bellamy’s eyebrows furrow, “What?”

“Food. For sustenance. Have you had any.”

“Why?”

She has to stop the sigh that threatens to escape, “I’m thinking about poisoning your next meal.”

He snorts. Straightens a little in his seat. “No. Why, you hungry?”

“That was what I was getting at, yes.”

Bellamy looks at his bin in the corner of the room. Clarke follows it, to see it overflowing with clothes. He rubs the back of his neck, “Takeout at the laundromat work?”

She looks at her own charcoal-stained jeans, then to her own pile of unwashed clothes, “Works great.”

She notices that he’s staring at her hamper, and that he looks…confused by it. “What?”

He clears his throat quickly, “Nothing. Let’s go.”

(when she goes to pick up her basket, she realizes that The Date Bra is resting on top of it. Black and lacy and she makes sure to push it towards the bottom, underneath her grey elastic sweatpants, the actual beige paint of clothes.)

\--

“It’s supposed to be a plate.”

Bellamy halts the chopsticks holding orange chicken a centimeter away from his mouth, “I hope you’re not talking about the dryer.”

Clarke readjusts her sitting position. The two of them are facing each other, cross-legged on top of their respective washing machines (“It keeps the lids locked,” Bellamy had grumbled by way of slightly embarrassed explanation). She’s never been to this laundromat before, but for what it lacks in functionality, it makes up for in privacy. So far it’s been just the two of them for the past half hour, having a bizarre picnic on top of the rinse cycle.

Instead of rolling her eyes, which she wants to do but it’s been a nearly pleasant half hour, she grabs the paper carton of unopened lo mein. With a few quick movements, she unfolds the box, spreading it out flat on the top of the washing machine that only shakes it a little.

“Plate,” she says by explanation, grabbing some of the noodles and biting down.

The food’s greasy, and a little cold, but it tastes better than anything at the French restaurant could have.

Bellamy gives a small shake of his head, before he flattens out the rest of the boxes in a manner clearly conveying that he’s humoring her, “I don’t get why that’s better.”

“Now it’s communal.”

“Who says I want to share.”

“The way you’ve been looking at my sesame seed chicken.”

His only answer is a snort, before he grabs a piece and somehow manages to chew it defiantly.

They sit and eat in a companionable silence, their knees almost touching. And there’s something relaxing about it. A month ago, that word and Bellamy Blake would have existed in different hemispheres. But over the past month, she was gradually being introduced to the other Bellamy, the one that cared intensely about his grades, smiled at his sister, and could quote Plato off the top of his head.

Neither of them had talked about Octavia’s surgery, or the painting of a harbor, during that month. Those moments were still there, but instead of a burden they were starting to feel like a bridge.

He was…a friend.

Clarke didn’t have many of those. Her mind goes, briefly, to Wells. And guilt makes her throat feel tight and her hands go numb.

“So,” Bellamy’s voice cuts through, as he’s swinging his booted foot to kick against the metal door of the washer to stop a rattle, “You want to talk about brunch?”

The offer takes her off-guard. But she considers it, “Maybe.”

Bellamy nods, and doesn’t say anything else. For a few minutes she weighs the value of having this discussion, with him, back and forth. Eventually pros overcome cons. And she settles on scowling at the floor so she doesn’t accidentally scowl at him.

“I met with my mom.” Every syllable tastes like chalk on her tongue.

“Did it go good?” He asks sardonically.

“It was short.”

“Good enough, then.”

It is and it isn’t comfortable to externalize what usually sits in her chest, but here, in this shitty laundromat eating mediocre take out, there’s a sense of quiet security that reminds her of confessionals.

It’s her turn to kick at her washing machine. The heel of her sneaker collides against the side. It sputters, stops, and restarts.

“I asked her about dad.”

His eyebrows furrow into a v, “What’s there to ask?”

Clarke pivots in her seat, no longer facing him. Instead her legs dangle off the edge of the washing machine. Her feet kick idly against its walls. And she talks, the words falling as dryly as old print from a yellowed newspaper page.

“He was killed.”

“Clarke, we don’t have to-“

“They never caught the shooter,” her mind goes to trajectories. Angles that don’t line up. Oxygen and gravity and survivable conditions. Fat, orange brush strokes catching rays of the sun on water. Wednesday the 17th. There are flecks of mud on the white shells of her Chuck Taylors, “They gunned him down outside of a safe house. He was set to go to court the next day.”

“For what.” She feels his stare. It doesn’t bother her. The ticking of her watch matches up with the spinning of the washing machine.

“He was a hydrologist,” Clarke’s heels dig in to the edge of the machine, “And an engineer. Working on government contracts outside of the country. He eventually found out a few manufacturing plants were contaminating major water supplies, and dad wanted to go public to the communities affected by it. But someone set him up, made it look like he was the one tampering with the filtration.”

“And they charged him.”

She nods.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Bellamy shift in his seat as well. Soon, both their legs are dangling off the laundered precipice. The edge of his hand brushes her own.

“It was high-profile. And no one knew to believe otherwise, not when government officials were practically condemning him in the media. Not even…” Clarke thinks of her mom, sitting at their dining room table with her hands clamped over her mouth. “So they set him up with a safe house after we posted bail. Just in case.”

“And someone leaked where that was.” Bellamy’s voice is steady, nearly as steady as Clarke’s. And for some reason, it helps to hear that. To not listen to words dripping with insincere condolences. Instead to hear A to B. Event to Event. Ticking seconds to minutes to hours.

“My mom.” The minute she says the words, they settle in her gut like stones. Final. Drowning. She takes a breath. The line of Bellamy’s fingers are warm.

“Fuck,” he says, after what feels like awhile.

“Fuck,” she agrees.

The buzzer on their washers goes off.

Neither of them move, and Clarke doesn’t protest when Bellamy’s hand slides over her own. Just like he doesn’t protest when her head goes to rest on his shoulder.

 

**ii.**

It takes three days. And on the fourth day, Clarke spends two class periods staring at a pre-written text message on her phone.

By the time Anatomy rolls around, she finally has enough courage to hit send.

\--

She sees Wells in the distance as she walks towards the conservatory. The Botanic Gardens used to be their favorite place when they were kids, ever since the field trip they took in the first grade. The memory of the two of them, gap-toothed and naïve, sticking their hands daringly near the opening of Venus Flytraps hits her. As well as how Wells had grabbed her wrist and pulled her back just before it snapped close.

He’s even sitting at their bench.

As she walks closer (and every step hurts), she notices that he’s dressed in a button-down shirt and a tie, his suit jacket slung over the back of his seat. She doesn’t know why he’s wearing a suit on a Thursday. She doesn’t know anything about what he’s doing and she doesn’t _get_ why he’s still willing to meet with her after how she’s treated him.

Clarke hated him.

A part of her genuinely hated him. And there’s no way to make up for that.

“Wells?” She already hears the strain in her voice.

He turns, and immediately he shifts in his seat. His eyes travel over her face, “Clarke. Are you alright?”

Even now. His first question is if she’s okay. Her eyes sting, she bites her lower lip.

“Can you be honest with me?” She asks, and the question is so pitiful and weak that it can only be about one thing.

Clarke watches as Wells’ eyes go wide. And she knows he knows what this is about.

“Clarke…”

“ _Please,_ Wells.”

His lips press together. But he nods, “…if you sit down.”

She does.

For a while they just sit. The air in the conservatory is humid and heavy, and though they get a few cursory looks from people walking through, most of the attention is rightfully settled on the large flowers surrounding them.

“I came here once a week, while you were away.” Wells says in a way that implies he doesn’t expect a response. He sends her a look, his lips curling into a bittersweet smile that she doesn’t know how to interpret. “Got arrested for trespassing, actually.”

And sent to ARC. For her. She runs her hands over her jeans, remembering the dark streaks that stained her other pair.

“It was mom. Not you.”

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, Wells folds his hands and rests his elbows on his thighs as he hunches over in his seat. She doesn’t know what he’s looking at, but it’s in the distance, and Clarke sees all the pain he’s not talking about coded in his body language.

She looks up at the glass ceiling of the conservatory, and feels tears spill out onto her cheeks. It’s the first time she’s cried since the art show.

“How can you still stand me?” She asks with a broken whisper, “After how I treated you.”

“You’re my best friend,” he says simply, not looking away from his point on the horizon, “I wouldn’t be able to do anything else.”

Clarke rubs the heel of her hand against her cheek, “I never even opened your letters when I was in solitary. I threw them all away.”

“It’s alright. They weren’t that great.”

A twisted, angry part of her wants him to be mad at her. The rest of her knows that’s not who he is. Wells isn’t the one to hold a grudge. He’s the one to hold memorial services for convicts he doesn’t know. To get arrested for breaking into a garden. To let someone hate him for their benefit.

After a while, he leans back. He moves his arm to relax on the backrest, behind her shoulders, but she sees him tense and stop. Wounded. She wounded him.

“How’d you find out?” He manages.

“…I went to the DC Urban Creation benefit.”

“The art show?”

She nods.

“Did you see…”

Clarke tears her gaze away from the ceiling, “He was there. I went out of my way to not see him.”

Wells gives a slow exhale, “We haven’t really talked since I got arrested.”

The confession does and doesn’t surprise her. Another rip she caused, since there’s no doubt Thelonious took Wells incarceration poorly. Thelonious. Who played a part in condemning her dad.

“I was staring at a painting of a harbor.”

“…Like near the safe house.”

She swallows and nods, “Yeah. Like dad’s safe house. After a while I realized…” she rubs the heel of her hand against her cheek once more, “I asked her about it. She didn’t deny anything.”

“I’m sorry, Clarke.”

“ _No._ I’m the one who-“ she shakes her head, and finishes the thought with a quiet accusation. “-you let me hate you. You didn’t say anything and I was _hating_ you.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“No. I was wrong. And I shouldn’t have…”

“Clarke.”

“I know I don’t deserve forgiveness from you-“

“ _Clarke._ ”

She turns to face him. And his arms wrap around her. Like they’re six years old again, like they’re kids able to play hide and seek in a greenhouse. She clenches his shoulders like he’s a lifeline. She buries her face in his shoulder.

“You’re still my best friend, Clarke.”

“I don’t know how.” She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, “But thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says easily, and when he pulls back she sees relief etched into every line of his face.

She can’t stop the watery smile. The unfastening in her chest. The feeling of finally setting something down.

“C’mon,” he offers, pulling her into a stand. “Let’s go see the Venus Flytraps.”

\--

They stay at the Botanic Gardens until after it closes, leaving through a patch of broken fence that he points out with a grin.

As they walk back to their respective dorms, Clarke feels exhausted and torn down but also like something that might be closer to okay.

 

**iii.**

It’s not until late the next day that she sees Bellamy again. Clarke has ten unheard voicemails from her mom, answered texts from Wells and Octavia and Finn, and two exams on Monday. And emotional exhaustion has taken its toll, as she rests her cheek against the opened textbook on her desk and feels herself nodding off.

“It’s only seven thirty,” Bellamy says by way of greeting, as he opens the door the rest of the way and slides in. He’s dressed in regular clothes—shirt-jeans-jacket-boots—and not his maintenance uniform, so she makes the deduction he’s returning from evening class.

“Okay,” she agrees, wondering where life went wrong to make book paper start feeling like a pillow.

“And you’re sleeping?” He yawns, too. Hypocrite.

“I had a long day.” The fact that the long day was yesterday doesn’t matter.

“What happened.” Bellamy asks with the absolute voice of sluggish death. He doesn’t look at her as he drops a stack of books on his mattress.

Clarke speaks directly into her desk, after a moment of consideration. “I was a bigger person.”

Bellamy snorts, pulling his work shirt over his head. “Does that mean we should get a beer?”

She’s seen him shirtless before. It’s unavoidable, living in this small of a space. But today he seems especially…six-packy. Six packs. Like. What beer came in. He was probably wanting a response to that question.

“Sure.” She manages.

He tilts his head as he grabs a clean shirt and tosses it on, “You okay?”

“Tired.”

Bellamy frowns, “We don’t have to go out.”

“No. I’ve seen enough of the inside of my physiology book. A break would be nice.”

“It’s midterms. Bring your books with.”

\--

“Are the two of you incapable of coming in here without an aura of weary malaise?” Raven asks with a smirk, as she pops the caps off two bottles and places them down on the counter.

Bellamy’s nose wrinkles, “Weary malaise.”

“I’ve been reading some French shit. It’s not bad, if you can deal with the pretentiousness.” She turns to Clarke, “Tab?”

Clarke looks at the lab notes she brought with. To the bar. “Tab.”

“You got it. I’ll be at the other end of the bar trying to patch our ice maker together with duct tape and a Phillips—the screwdriver, not the vodka—when you need another.”

Clarke wraps her hand around the beer. The sweat of the bottle is cold against her palm. She’s not a fan of beer in general, but for some reason, tonight this looks like the best thing she’ll ever have. 

Bellamy grabs his and takes a swig. He doesn’t stop. By the time he puts it back down on the counter it’s half gone.

“Rough day?” Clarke takes a sip of her own. It isn’t terrible.

“Just Murphy. Fucking up our group project.” He sends her a ‘can you fucking believe this’ look, “I used to get shot at. Now I have to worry about delinquents turning in power points on time.”

She drums her fingertips against the bottle. And instead of pointing out that using the word “delinquent” makes him sound like a seventy-year-old man, she decides to Ask. “How long were you in the army?”

His jaw clenches. “Six years. Three tours.”

“Where to?”

“Afghanistan. Iraq. Afghanistan again.”

“Why’d you leave?”

His jaw clenches tighter, clearly uncomfortable. But she doesn’t regret asking. She knows, if nothing else, that her and Bellamy have an understanding about saying when to back off.

“I was discharged,” he settles on, and picks up his beer again. By the time he sets it down, it’s empty. And he’s clearing his throat. “You doing okay? What with…everything.”

Clarke recognizes the maneuver all too well, but the genuine concern in the question makes it clear that it’s not just a deflection tactic. She takes another sip. And decides that she was wrong—this is terrible. She turns the bottle to read the label (Coors) and makes a mental note to never order it again.

“I’m getting there,” she settles on, “I talked to Wells yesterday.”

“Who?”

“My friend,” she says, and that word makes something rise in her. “You’ve met him, he came to the dorm a few times.”

Bellamy’s face scrunches in thought, “The guy you yell at?”

She winces. Takes a gulp of the stale tasting liquid, “Yeah. I’m…not yelling at him anymore.”

“That’s good?”

“That’s good.”

They both sigh. He looks at his empty bottle. She stares at her lab notes.

 “Octavia wants me to meet him,” he says out of nowhere. “The guy’s got a jacket with _Trigedakru_ patches on it and she wants me to meet him.”

“Trigedakru?”

“A motorcycle gang.” He goes to drink from his beer, realizes it’s empty, and settles for just clenching the bottle tightly. “After all this shit with her leg. A motorcycle gang.”

“Maybe she doesn’t ride with him.”

“It’s _Octavia._ ”

“True,” she concedes. Her thumbnail scrapes at the label. It peels off easily enough from the glass, “But her life needs to be her decision.”

He glares at her, “No it doesn’t.”

Clarke shrugs, “I’ve never had a sibling, but you’ve never been in prison or juvenile detention.” Clarke meets his gaze, “I don’t know everything, but I do know enough to guess that she’s been locked in longer than most.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Every where’s dangerous,” she mutters, “But this isn’t about that. She’s trying to trust you, Bellamy. By telling you.”

He frowns at his bottle and goes quiet. “…you think?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to meet him.”

“I need another beer.” He signals to Raven, who holds up a hand for more time as she whacks a cable with a wrench.

“I don’t know how you drink this.”

“It’s cheap.”

“It’s awful.”

“Got any better suggestions, Princess?”

She’s surprised to hear the old (derogatory) nickname. But now, there’s a glint of humor in his eyes and a hint of a grin making his cheek dimple. The expression throws her, a little. He looks…

Younger. Less angry.

And for whatever reason, that makes her smile. “I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Try the two dollar vodka.”

\--

Two shots in and they’re talking about their classes and group work and fuck Murphy, honestly.

\--

Three shots in and Raven is sitting on the counter helping them make flashcards. Turns out she’s a lot better at engineering than she wants to admit and she _snorts_ when Clarke tells her the name of her TA (Wick).

\--

Four shots in and she hears his actual laugh for the first time.

\--

Five shots in and she makes a goal to hear it more.

She also shows him how to play snooker at the pool table (he sucks).

\--

Six shots in and he’s reaching over and tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

“It’s annoying,” he says, eyes narrowed in accusation. “It’s always the same piece and it’s always on your neck and I’m tired of looking at it.”

“When have you looked at it?” She asks through a hiccup.

“That art show thing. On the walk back. When your hair was all-“ he makes a dome shape over his head with his free hand, the one not resting at the place between her shoulder and neck.

“Up?” She suggests.

“Yeah. Up.”

His hand’s still on the side of her neck. It’s warm. Laundromat-warm. She smiles. He smiles back. And finally drops it.

\--

Seven shots in, they’re back at the counter, and he makes a confession.

“I saw your bra.”

She shrugs.

“No, I _saw_ it.”

She shrugs again.

\--

Eight shots in and his arm is around her shoulders and she is showing him how blood flows through the ventricle diagrams in her textbook. Her feet are on his lap when he explains to her what _Allegory of the Cave_ means (“No! Not that _Matrix_ crap. _Actual_ philosophy.”)

\--

“Hey nerds,” Raven says good-naturedly, though around a yawn, “Last call.”

Clarke’s having a hard time staying upright on her barstool. Bellamy keeps tucking hair behind her ear (and she’s pretty sure it was fine where it was at least a couple of times). But they look at each other.

He raises his brows. She raises hers.

And they wrap up nine shots with an impressive twenty-five dollar tab.

 

**iv.**

“I should walk you home,” Bellamy decides, as they’re already walking home. His grin has become an almost permanent fixture on his face since around shot number six (seven? twelve?) and she likes it. He looks less punchable with it on.

“We live together,” she reminds him.

“On bunk beds.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that’s weird.”

“Sometimes.”

He sighs, looking up at the starry sky. It reminds her of the art gallery night. And she remembers it was a lot more of a pleasant walk when she had his arm around his waist, so she does it again. His arm goes around her shoulders as if there’s already a muscle memory attached.

“I don’t know about you, Clarke.”

“That’s fine. I don’t know about you, either.”

He nods. She can feel the edge of his hipbone under her palm. And his thumb rubbing slow circles over her shoulder.

“I haven’t been drunk in years,” he continues.

“You’re okay at it.”

“Thanks.”

They manage a few more steps. His thumb stops moving. He frowns.

“I’m going to make it weird,” he predicts.

They cross the street. Cars honk, but they’re oblivious to it.

“Thought it was already weird.”

“Weirder.”

“It happens.”

“Clarke-“ he has to stop talking in order to figure out the card key for their dorm building. It beeps red. He goes to open the door. Swears. Clarke grabs his fingers to turn the card around. He swipes it again. It beeps green. The door opens. “What was I saying?”

They walk in. She has to lean against him a little bit. Which is fine. He’s fine. It’s fine. “You were going to make it weird.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

They make it to the stairs. Bellamy stumbles a bit on the landing, and they both let out short laughs because almost falling is suddenly the most hilarious thing that’s ever happened to her. She leans her weight into him as he leans his weight into her, and before she knows it, her back is pressed to the wall and Bellamy is just sort of hovering there. One of his arms is still around her shoulders (just like one of hers is around his waist--teamwork), but the other goes to rest against the wall space above her head.

Clarke looks up (when did he get tall?) and he looks down (probably when she got short—is she short?) and she thinks she could make constellations out of his freckles. Which is either poetic or inebriated, it’s hard to tell at the moment.

“Hey, Clarke.” He says, still grinning. Like they just ran into each other here, outside of their dorm.

She grins back, “Hey, Bellamy.”

He leans forward a little more, his forehead presses against her own. “I’m drunk.”

“Me too.”

“Is that okay?”

“It’s fine.”

“Good.”

The arm he has on her shoulders drops down to her waist. He has large hands, she thinks, as one closes over her hip.

“Sorry,” he whispers, though he doesn’t look that sorry.

“For what?”

“Making it weirder.”

“It’s not that weird-“

It kind of happens in slow motion, then. Despite it going all at once. Delayed reaction time, maybe.

His forehead bumps her nose a little when he brings his face lower, but she’s been hit harder on the nose before. She has a second to worry about whether or not it’s going to bleed before she feels him, warm and soft, and that’s when she realizes she’s being kissed. Her fingers slide up into his hair, threading strands of it. The other moves from his waist to grab a handful of his shirt around his chest, because she feels like they’re swaying, like the room’s swaying, like they’re standing still, and holding people is how you stop them from falling down.

His tongue sweeps across her lips as his thumb ghosts across the small sliver of exposed skin between her shirt and jeans. The fingers she has on his waist press down harder. His hand moves from her hip to her thigh to her ass and she hears him give a small, contented sigh when their mouths part.

She cranes her head back just as he moves to kiss her neck, lips hot against areas that make her want to shiver. She bunches a fistful of his hair in her hand, hopefully not that hard but she isn’t going to held accountable if it is when he’s managing to leave a trail down the skin that covers her carotid artery (and who knows the names of arteries right now. hopeless, she’s hopeless sometimes-)

He presses closer to her. She presses closer to the wall. Their hips grind together and he lets out a hiss. With a tense movement, he pulls away.

“I think I want to sleep with you,” he observes.

His hand is still on her ass. She blinks. “I figured.”

“That might be a bad idea.”

Clarke runs her tongue over her lower lip. He watches her. And she nods, “It might.”

“I don’t do relationships.”

“I don’t either.”

“We live together.”

“We do.” And, because it seems important, “With bunk beds.”

He swears. “I made it weird.”

Her heart’s thrumming against her chest. Her fingers are still in his hair. His hand is _still_ on her ass. “A little.”

“Do you mind?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we should stop.”

“Maybe.”

“Like right now?”

She is still swaying and standing still. She is still pressed against the wall. His hand is **_still_** on her ass.

“Ten more minutes.”

He grins (two dimples), and kisses her again.


End file.
